The Sense of Wonder by Rachel Carson

If I had influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside over the christening of all children I should ask that her gift to each child in the world be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life, as an unfailing antidote against the boredom and disenchantments of later years, the sterile preoccupation with things artificial, the alienation from the sources of our strength.
Rachel Carson, The Sense of Wonder

Greatest poems of love & Soft emotions of love:If Somebody Loves You by Edgar Guest**Love's Reality by Coventry Patmore**If thou must love me, let it be for nought by Elizabeth Barrett Browning**A Love Letter byAlexander Pushkin**Cloths of Heaven by W.B. Yeats

Music:
Omar Akram-Draw me close

If Somebody Loves You
Edgar Guest

If somebody loves you,
You cannot be sad;
You've cause for rejoicing,
You've cause to be glad.
You've a subject for song
As you journey your way;
If somebody loves you
You ought to be gay.

If a curly-head baby
Of four is your pride,
Chattering gaily
Along by your side;
All trouble should vanish,
All care disappear,
If the baby who loves you
Is pattering near.

If you've an old mother
Who loves you today;
Your life should be merry,
Your work should be play.
For think of the motherless
Children there are,
Who still plod the roads
Leading ever so far.

If somebody loves you,
A wife or a child;
A mother or father,
A friend who has smiled,
And taken your hand
In a friend's helping way;
You ought to be merry,
You ought to be gay.

For love, after all,
Is the purpose of life;
The purpose of struggle,
And turmoil and strife.
If somebody loves you
Why worry and sigh?
For love we are living,
And love cannot die.

Richard Johnson Art

Love's Reality
Coventry Patmore

I WALK, I trust, with open eyes;
I've travelled half my worldly course;
And in the way behind me lies
Much vanity and some remorse;
I've lived to feel how pride may part
Spirits, tho' matched like hand and glove;
I've blushed for love's abode, the heart;
But have not disbelieved in love;

Nor unto love, sole mortal thing
Or worth immortal, done the wrong
To count it, with the rest that sing,
Unworthy of a serious song;
And love is my reward: for now,
When most of dead'ning time complain,
The myrtle blooms upon my brow,
Its odour quickens all my brain.

Vidan Art

If thou must love me, let it be for nought
Elizabeth Barrett Browning

If thou must love me, let it be for nought
Except for love's sake only. Do not say
"I love her for her smile—her look—her way
Of speaking gently,—for a trick of thought
That falls in well with mine, and certes brought
A sense of pleasant ease on such a day"—
For these things in themselves, Beloved, may

Be changed, or change for thee,—and love, so wrought,
May be unwrought so. Neither love me for
Thine own dear pity's wiping my cheeks dry,—
A creature might forget to weep, who bore
Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!
But love me for love's sake, that evermore
Thou may'st love on, through love's eternity.

Vidan Art

A Love Letter
Alexander Pushkin

I just recall this wondrous instant:
You have arrived before my face --
A vision, fleeting in a distance,
A spirit of the pure grace.

In pine of sorrow unfair,
In worldly harassment and noise
I dreamed of your beloved air
And heard your quiet, gentle voice.

Years passed. The tempests' rebel senders
Have scattered this delightful dream,
And I forgot this sound tender
And how heavenly you seemed.

In gloomy dark of isolation,
My days were gradually moved,
Without faith and inspiration,
Without tears, life, and love.

My soul awoke with decision:
And you again came as a blest,
Like an enchanting fleeting vision,
A spirit of the pure grace.

My heart beats on in resurrection--
It has again for what to strive:
Divinity and inspiration,
Life, tears, and eternal love.

Jose Miguel Roman Frances Art

Cloths of Heaven
W.B. Yeats

HAD I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

Wonder, hope, belief by George Eliot

Signs are small measurable things, but interpretations are illimitable, and in girls of sweet, ardent nature, every sign is apt to conjure up wonder, hope, belief, vast as a sky, and colored by a diffused thimbleful of matter in the shape of knowledge.
George Eliot,Middlemarch

Quote on Ego& human relationships by Tennessee Williams

Nobody sees anybody truly but all through the flaws of their own egos. That is the way we all see ...each other in life. Vanity, fear, desire, competition-- all such distortions within our own egos-- condition our vision of those in relation to us. Add to those distortions to our own egos the corresponding distortions in the egos of others, and you see how cloudy the glass must become through which we look at each other. That's how it is in all living relationships except when there is that rare case of two people who love intensely enough to burn through all those layers of opacity and see each other's naked hearts.
Tennessee Williams

A Thought of Summer by Mary T. Lathrap

Pino Daeni Art

A Thought of Summer
Mary T. Lathrap

The year is fair, the year is sweet,
And Nature's ministry complete.
The graceful tree-tops idly swing,
The summer birds are on the wing;
And ladened with a rare perfume
Is every wandering breeze of June.

The far-off stable hills abide,
And guard the valleys cool and wide.
Across the green the rivers run,
Like silver ribbons in the sun;
With low wish-wash they onward flee,
Swift-footed seekers for the sea.

Fair skies of June with radiant glow,
Bend over all their blue and snow
With clouds that sweep the upper air
Like angels, winged to answer prayer.
And yet the tender summer skies
Keep close their secret from our eyes,
And never open any door
Into the land we would explore.

Ah! fields of summer, sweet with balm!
Ah! skies of summer, far and calm!
Across your beauty yet doth break
The cry of hearts that long and ache.
O! give the world some perfect strain,
To heal its discord and its pain;
For though the year is fair and sweet
Your ministry is not complete.

Human Feelings by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Human Feelings
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

AH, ye gods! ye great immortals
In the spacious heavens above us!
Would ye on this earth but give us
Steadfast minds and dauntless courage
We, oh kindly ones, would leave you
All your spacious heavens above us!

Love is the goal of spiritual life by Lama Surya Das

Learning how to love is the goal and the purpose of spiritual life -- not learning how to develop psychic powers, not learning how to bow, chant, do yoga, or even meditate, but learning to love. Love is the truth. Love is the light.
Lama Surya Das

if you can't handle me at my worst you don't deserve me at my best by Marilyn Monroe

I'm selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best.
Marilyn Monroe

Romantic love quotes

The best love is the kind that awakens the soul; that makes us reach for more, that plants the fire in our hearts and brings peace to our minds. That’s what I hope to give you forever.
The Notebook

You have to walk carefully in the beginning of love; the running across fields into your lover's arms can only come later when you're sure they won't laugh if you trip.
Jonathan Carroll

Love does not consist of gazing at each other, but in looking together in the same direction.
Antoine de Saint-Exupery

We are not the same persons this year as last; nor are those we love. It is a happy chance if we, changing, continue to love a changed person.
W. Somerset Maugham

Love quote by Sarah Bernhardt

All the pictures that hung in my memory before I knew you have faded and given place to our radient moments together. Now I cannot live apart from you... Your words are my food, your breath is my wine. You are everything to me.
Sarah Bernhardt

Inspirational Hope Quotes

You can cut all the flowers but you
cannot keep Spring from coming.
Pablo Neruda

Blessed is he who expects nothing,
for he shall never be disappointed.
Alexander Pope

I don't think of all the misery,
but of the beauty that still remains.
Anne Frank

Let your hopes, not your hurts, shape your future.
Robert H. Schuller

Hope is the last thing that dies in man;
and though it be exceedingly deceitful,
yet it is of this good use to us, that
while we are traveling through life it
conducts us in an easier and more pleasant
way to our journey’s end.
Francois De La Rochefoucauld

Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that
if you just show up and try to do the right thing,
the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work:
You don't give up.
Anne Lamott

Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you
have not; but remember that what you now have
was once among the things you only hoped for.
Epicurus

The very idea of a bird and the poet by John Burroughs

The very idea of a bird is a symbol and a suggestion to the poet. A bird seems to be at the top of the scale, so vehement and intense his life. . . . The beautiful vagabonds, endowed with every grace, masters of all climes, and knowing no bounds -- how many human aspirations are realised in their free, holiday-lives -- and how many suggestions to the poet in their flight and song!
John Burroughs

A La Claire Fontaine lyrics -From " The Painted Veil"

The song was played at the very end of the movie The Painted Veil, an adaptation of W. Somerset Maugham's novel.

À la claire fontaine
At the Clear Spring
Chanson enfantine
(French)

À la claire fontaine,
M'en allant promener
J'ai trouvé l'eau si belle
Que je m'y suis baigné

Refrain :
Il y a longtemps que je t'aime
Jamais je ne t'oublierai

Sous les feuilles d'un chêne,
Je me suis fait sécher
Sur la plus haute branche,
Un rossignol chantait

Refrain

Chante rossignol, chante,
Toi qui as le cœur gai
Tu as le cœur à rire,
Moi je l'ai à pleurer

Refrain
J'ai perdu mon amie,
Sans l'avoir mérité
Pour un bouquet de roses,
Que je lui refusai.

Refrain

Je voudrais que la rose,
Fût encore au rosier
Et que ma douce amie
Fût encore à m'aimer.

At the Clear Fountain
Children's Song

(English)

At the clear fountain,
While I was strolling by,
I found the water so nice
That I went in to bathe.

Chorus
So long I've been loving you,
I will never forget you.

Under an oak tree,
I dried myself.
On the highest branch,
A nightingale was singing.

Chorus

Sing, nightingale, sing,
Your heart is so happy.
Your heart feels like laughing,
Mine feels like weeping.

Chorus

I lost my beloved,
Without deserving it,
For a bunch of roses,
That I denied her.

Chorus

I wanted the rose
To stay on the rosebush,
And for my sweet beloved
To be still loving me.

The Carpenter's House :inspirational story

The Carpenter's House
Author Unknown

An elderly carpenter was ready to retire. He told his employer-contractor of his plans to leave the house building business and live a more leisurely life with his wife enjoying his extended family.

He would miss the paycheck, but he needed to retire. They could get by. The contractor was sorry to see his good worker go and asked if he could build just one more house as a personal favor. The carpenter said yes, but in time it was easy to see that his heart was not in his work. He resorted to shoddy workmanship and used inferior materials. It was an unfortunate way to end his career.

When the carpenter finished his work and the builder came to inspect the house, the contractor handed the front-door key to the carpenter. "This is your house," he said, "my gift to you."

What a shock! What a shame! If he had only known he was building his own house, he would have done it all so differently. Now he had to live in the home he had built none too well.

So it is with us. We build our lives in a distracted way, reacting rather than acting, willing to put up less than the best. At important points we do not give the job our best effort. Then with a shock we look at the situation we have created and find that we are now living in the house we have built. If we had realized that we would have done it differently.

Think of yourself as the carpenter. Think about your house. Each day you hammer a nail, place a board, or erect a wall. Build wisely. It is the only life you will ever build. Even if you live it for only one day more, that day deserves to be lived graciously and with dignity. The plaque on the wall says, "Life is a do-it-yourself project." Your life tomorrow will be the result of your attitudes and the choices you make today.

Silent sorrow by khalil Gibran

Music:
Hatice Ahu Sağlam-Gülümcan

Silent Sorrow
From"The broken Wings
Khalil Gibran

My neighbors, you remember the dawn of youth with pleasure and regret its passing; but I remember it like a prisoner who recalls the bars and shackles of his jail. You speak of those years between infancy and youth as a golden era free from confinement and cares, but I call those years an era of silent sorrow which dropped as a seed into my heart and grew with it and could find no outlet to the world of Knowledge and wisdom until love came and opened the heart's doors and lighted its corners. Love provided me with a tongue and tears.

You people remember the gardens and orchids and the meeting places and street corners that witnessed your games and heard your innocent whispering; and I remember, too, the beautiful spot in North Lebanon. Every time I close my eyes I see those valleys full of magic and dignity and those mountains covered with glory and greatness trying to reach the sky. Every time I shut my ears to the clamor of the city I hear the murmur of the rivulets and the rustling of the branches.

All those beauties which I speak of now and which I long to see, as a child longs for his mother's breast, wounded my spirit, imprisoned in the darkness of youth, as a falcon suffers in its cage when it sees a flock of birds flying freely in the spacious sky. Those valleys and hills fired my imagination, but bitter thoughts wove round my heart a net of hopelessness.

Louis Rémy Mignot Art

Every time I went to the fields I returned disappointed, without understanding the cause of my disappointment. Every time I looked at the gray sky I felt my heart contract. Every time I heard the singing of the birds and babbling of the spring I suffered without understanding the reason for my suffering. It is said that unsophistication makes a man empty and that emptiness makes him carefree.

It may be true among those who were born dead and who exist like frozen corpses; but the sensitive boy who feels much and knows little is the most unfortunate creature under the sun, because he is torn by two forces. The first force elevates him and shows him the beauty of existence through a cloud of dreams; the second ties him down to the earth and fills his eyes with dust and overpowers him with fears and darkness.

Solitude has soft, silky hands, but with strong fingers it grasps the heart and makes it ache with sorrow. Solitude is the ally of sorrow as well as a companion of spiritual exaltation. The boy's soul undergoing the buffeting of sorrow is like a white lily just unfolding. It trembles before the breeze and opens its heart to daybreak and folds its leaves back when the shadow of night comes. If that boy does not have diversion or friends or companions in his games his life will be like a narrow prison in which he sees nothing but spiderwebs and hears nothing but the crawling of insects.

That sorrow which obsessed me during my youth was not caused by lack of amusement, because I could have had it; neither from lack of friends, because I could have found them. That sorrow was caused by an inward ailment which made me love solitude. It killed in me the inclination for games and amusement. It removed from my shoulders the wings of youth and made me like a pong of water between mountains which reflects in its calm surface the shadows of ghosts and the colors of clouds and trees, but cannot find an outlet by which to pass singing to the sea.

Thus was my life before I attained the age of eighteen. That year is like a mountain peak in my life, for it awakened knowledge in me and made me understand the vicissitudes of mankind. In that year I was reborn and unless a person is born again his life will remain like a blank sheet in the book of existence. In that year, I saw the angels of heaven looking at me through the eyes of a beautiful woman. I also saw the devils of hell raging in the heart of an evil man. He who does not see the angels and devils in the beauty and malice of life will be far removed from knowledge, and his spirit will be empty of affection.