Risk it

To laugh is to risk appearing the fool,
To weep is to risk being vulnerable,
To reach out is to risk rejection,
To expose feelings is to risk exposing your true self,
To share your ideas and dreams is to risk their loss,
To love is to risk your heart,
To live is to risk dying,
To hope is to risk despair,
To try is to risk failure,
But the free will risk, knowing that the greatest defeat in life is to risk nothing.

Those who risk nothing . . . do nothing, have nothing, and give nothing.
They may avoid suffering and sorrow, but they also avoid learning, changing, growing, loving, and living.

Chained by their need to avoid pain, they are slaves who have forfeited their freedom.

Only those who risk are truly free.

My symphony

To live content with small means, to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion, to be worthy,not respectable, and wealthy, not rich, to study hard, think quietly, talk gently, act frankly, to listen to stars and birds, to babes and sages, with open heart, to bear all cheerfully, do all bravely, await occasions, hurry never, in a word to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common, this is to be my symphony.

- William Henry Channing

To hunger and thirst after righteousness is when nothing in the world can fascinate us so much as being near to God.
Smith Wigglesworth

A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.