“Don’t lower your expectations to meet your performance. Raise your level of performance to meet your expectations.”

What if you gave someone a gift, and they neglected to thank you for it – would you be likely to give them another?

Concern yourself more with accepting responsibility than with assigning blame.

The keys to patience are acceptance and faith. Accept things as they are, and look realistically at the world around you.

Your destiny is to fulfill those things upon which you focus most intently.

Enjoy doing nothing, and you can enjoy doing anything. Enjoy having nothing, and you can enjoy whatever you have.

Take your mind off the problems for a moment, and focus on the positive possibilities. Consider how very much you are able to do.

The more vividly you consider how you want your world to be, the more real and effective tools you will have for making it so.

The more closely you get in touch with your dreams, the more able you are to make them real.

If you could make the world exactly to your liking, consider very specifically just how that world would be. If you could spend your time doing precisely what you wish, how would the moments of your life be lived?

Don’t lower your expectations to meet your performance. Raise your level of performance to meet your expectations.

When was the last time you spent a quiet moment just doing nothing – just sitting and looking at the sea, or watching the wind blowing the tree limbs, or waves rippling on a pond, a flickering candle or children playing in the park?

You’ve done it before and you can do it now. See the positive possibilities. Redirect the substantial energy of your frustration and turn it into positive, effective, unstoppable determination.

Excellence is not a skill, it’s an attitude.

Dare to visualize a world in which your most treasured dreams have become true.

Put your energy into building what is creative, valuable and empowering. And you won’t have to constantly fight against what is destructive and draining.

If you so choose, the challenges can make you stronger. If you so choose, the disappointments can make you more determined.

He grinned when i didn’t protest, and lowered his mouth toward mine. The first touch was just that – a touch. A teasing, tempting softness. I licked my lips and patch’s grin deepened. “more?” he asked. I curled my hands into his hair, pulling him closer. “more.

Any onset of increased investor caution elevates risk premiums and, as a consequence, lowers asset values and promotes the liquidation of the debt that supported higher asset prices.