Yes, what is the point of a daily quote or affirmation anyway?  Isn’t it just another meaningless use of social media?  A marketing ploy?  Sure, but that doesn’t negate their value as a tool to re orient and focus our minds.

A quote can be a positive and meaningful mental health tool if it’s used as a focal point for our thoughts.  Taking the time to read one, and to contemplate the author’s message, and to consider how the brief message applies to us personally can give us a fresh perspective and that can make all the difference.

Having a point of reference is a key to staying on course.  Without one, we wander in circles.  This is true if we’re out walking in a desert or if we lost in our thoughts.  Quotes and affirmations are to the inner world or our minds, what North is on a compass.

To fully appreciate the benefits of a quote, read it slowly the way you would sip a fine wine or nibble a chocolate truffle.  Pay attention to the “finish”  with a quote it’ll be the thoughts it sparks in your own mind. 

Savouring a quote has the same benefits for our minds that mediation has, it quiets our thoughts and restores mental equilibrium.  Quotes are the fast food of meditation when you don’t have the time to stop and be still for more than 5 minutes!

For your consideration I’d like to share three quotes from my personal collection.  Read each one, and then consider them as a whole.

“It is never too late to be what you might have been” – George Eliot

“Are you in earnest?  Seize this very minute.  What you can do, or think you can, begin it.” – Johann Wolfgan von Goethe, “Faust”

And last but not least, “Do what you can, with what you have, right where you are.” – Theodore Roosevelt.