Grace

You say grace before meals.  All right.  But I say grace before the concert and the opera, and grace before the play and pantomime, and grace before I open a book, and grace before sketching, painting, swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing and grace before I dip the pen in the ink. 
--G.K. Chesterton

Gratitude

I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought; and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder. 
--G.K. Chesterton

(Thank you, dear friends, for your very nice comments and especially for your prayers. Though I have not responded for a while now, please know that I am most grateful for each and every word. May Almighty God bless you all.) 

Kindness

Wherever there is a human being, there is an opportunity for a kindness. 
--Seneca

Feast of the Forty Martyr-Saints of England and Wales

All ye holy martyrs, pray for us!
(And please pray especially for my son.)

Leisure

What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare?

No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.

No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.

No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.

No time to watch till her mouth can
Enrich the smile her eyes began.

A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
--W. H. Davies

Learn to love

"You learn to speak by speaking, to study by studying, to run by running, to work by working, and just so, you learn to love by loving. All those who think to learn in any other way deceive themselves."

--St. Francis de Sales

Beginning

Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.

--Seneca