Mirror Graffiti

We marveled at that experience and worked to extend that phenomenon to other mirrors in her life.

Her feedback inspired a weekly tradition in my office. Each week that mirror now communicates encouragement, inspiration and common sense in the form of quotations from others in the world-at-large. May all mirrors reflect compassion and kindness!

We enjoy them. Hope you will as well. Here’s a sampling

The thing that is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself.
Anna Quindlen

Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible.
Dalai Lama

Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.
James Baldwin

  

There is never a good time for mindfulness, and there is never a bad time. Mindfulness is one of those things you simply do, because if you practice being aware – completely open to the universe, just exactly as it is – you will transform your life in time.
Marsha Linehan

 

Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.
Arthur Ashe

 

It’s not what you do once in a while, it’s what you do day in and day out that makes a difference.
Jenny Craig

 

My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive.
Maya Angelou

 

Promise me you’ll always remember you are braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem and smarter than you think.
A. A. Milne

 

It is our choices, Harry, that show what we really are, far more than our abilities.
 J. K. Rowling 

 

Reacting in anger or annoyance will not advance one’s ability to persuade.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg

 

What you plant now, you will harvest later.
Og Mandino

 

With the new day comes new thoughts and new strength.
Eleanor Roosevelt 

 

If you fell down yesterday, stand up today.
H. G. Wells

 

We don’t develop courage by being happy every day. We develop it by surviving difficult times and challenging adversity.
Barbara DeAngelis

 

Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.
Thomas A. Edison

 

Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the little voice at the end of the day that says I’ll try again tomorrow.
Mary Anne Radmacher

 

The secret to getting ahead is getting started.
Mark Twain

 

Only I can change my life, no one can do it for me.
Carol Burnett

 

Myths are lies that lead us to truth.
Picasso

 

The big secret in life is that there is no big secret. Whatever your goal, you can get there if you are willing to work.
Oprah Winfrey

 

Winners make a habit of manufacturing their own positive expectations in advance of the event.
Brian Tracy

 

Change your life today. Don’t gamble on the future, act now, without delay.
Simone de Beauvoir

 

He who is not every day conquering some fear has not learned the secret of life.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

Fear is inevitable, I have to accept that, but I cannot allow it to paralyze me.
Isabel Allende

 

Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy.
Thich Nhat Hanh

 

“Learning how to think” really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience.
David Foster Wallace

 

If you have knowledge, let others light their candles in it.
Margaret Fuller

 

Mindfulness helps you go home to the present.  And every time you go there and recognize a condition of happiness that you have, happiness comes.
Thich Nhat Hanh

 

We cannot direct the wind, but we can adjust the sails.
Dolly Parton

 

We know what we are, but not what we may be.
William Shakespeare

 

We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.
Maya Angelou

 

Look inside yourself, Simba, you are more than you have become.
The Lion King

 

Opportunity may be hard to recognize if you are only looking for a lucky break.
Monta Crane

 

See the light in others and treat them as if that is all you see.
Wayne Dwyer

 

We are constantly being told what other people think we are, and that’s why it is so important to know yourself. 
Sarah McLachlan

 

Follow your instincts. That’s where true wisdom manifests itself.
Oprah Winfrey

 

Be the change you want to see in the world.
Mahatma Gandhi

 

You may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing we call “failure” is not the falling down, but the staying down.
Mary Pickford

 

Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.
Mark Twain

 

Perfection is out of the question.
Anne Archer

 

Love yourself first and everything else falls into line. You really have to love yourself to get anything done in this world.
Lucille Ball

 

You can’t cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the water.
Rabindranath Tagore

 

There’s a hunger and a fervor that I have, but there’s no person I’m going to push to the side to get where I’m going. I want to create my own road. 
Drew Barrymore

 

Accept the challenges so that you can feel the exhilaration of victory.
George S. Patton

 

After all these years, I am still involved in the process of self-discovery. It’s better to explore life and make mistakes than to play it safe. Mistakes are part of the dues one pays for a full life.
Sophia Loren

 

In order to carry a positive action, we must develop here a positive vision.
Dalai Lama

 

Our way is not soft grass, it’s a mountain path with lots of rocks. But it goes upwards, forward, to the sun.
Ruth Westheimer

 

Without leaps of imagination, or dreaming, we lose the excitement of possibilities. Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning.
Gloria Steinem

 

Never bend your head. Hold it high. Look the world straight in the eye.
Helen Keller

 

The most called-upon prerequisite of a friend is an accessible ear.
Maya Angelou

 

There are no shortcuts to any place worth going.
Beverly Sills

 

All great achievements require time.
Maya Angelou