Scented Thoughts

Scented Thoughts

A collection of shared thoughts quoted from women, past and present politicians, poets, mothers, daughters, temptresses, saints, and trailblazers, I most admire. Women voicing their idealism in their drive to succeed despite society's expectations... Comments on life, juggling roles of wife, mother, lover, friend, housekeeper, and worker... Inspiring thoughts tinge with pride, self worth and a sense of humor. But most of all, Revealing thoughts conveying to all women what is essential in one's life, re-affirming the Joy of being alive, And that truly, it is Great to be a Woman!

Dreams and Aspirations

Email me

View My Guestbook

Home/Know Thyself/Shokrun

Dreams and Aspirations

" My grandfather once told me that there were two kinds of people: those who do the work and those who take the credit. He told me to try to be in the first group; there was much less competition. " - Indira Gandhi

" There are only two ways of spreading light - to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it. " - Edith Wharton

" The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams. " - Eleanor Roosevelt

" Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goals. " - Author Unknown

" Your talent is God's gift to you. What you do with it is your gift back to God." - Unknown

" To be successful, the first thing to do is fall in love with your work." - Sister Mary Lauretta Catholic nun

" Adventure is something you seek for pleasure, or for profit, like a gold rush or invading a country; ...but experience is what really happens to you in the long run; the truth that finally overtakes you." - Katherine Anne Porter, 1890-1980 American writer


- Lauren Bacall, b.1924 American actress
: "I don't wait for moods.; You accomplish nothing if you do that.; Your mind must know it has got to get down to earth."
- Pearls S. Buck, 1892-1973 American writer
: "You must do the things you think you cannot do."
- Eleanor Roosevelt, 1884-1962 American states woman


"...You may be disappointed if you fail,
but you are doomed if you don't try."
"Courage is the price that Life exacts for granting peace."
- Amelia Earhart, 1898-1937 American aviator: "Mistakes are part of the dues one pays for a full life."; - Sofia Loren, b.1934 Italian actress; "Reality is something you rise above."
- Liza Minnelli, b.1946 American actress: "You can't be brave; if you've only have wonderful things happen to you."; - Mary Tyler Moore, 1937 American actress; "Our strength is often composed of the weakness; we're damned if we're going to show!"; - Mignon McLaughlin, 2oth century American writer; "And the trouble is, if you don't risk anything, you risk even more."; - Erica Jong, b.1942 American writer; "Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure.; The fearful are caught as often as the bold."; - Helen Keller, 1880-1968 American writer; "If you have made mistakes; ...there is always another chance for you; ...you may have a fresh start any moment you choose,; for this thing we call "failure"; is not the falling down, but the staying down."; - Mary Pickford, 1893-1979 American actress; "I think that wherever your journey takes you,; there are new gods waiting there, with divine patience-; and laughter."; - Susan M. Watkins, b. 1945 American writer; "Light tomorrow with today!"; - Elizabeth Barrett Browning, 1806-1861 English poet

Home/Know Thyself/Shokrun
: "After awhile you learn
the subtle difference between
holding a hand and chaining a soul
and you learn that love doesn't mean possession
and company doesn't mean security.
And you begin to learn that kisses aren't contracts
and presents aren't promises
and you begin to accept your defeats with your head up
and your eyes ahead
with the grace of an adult not the grief of a child.
And you learn to build your roads today
because tomorrow's ground is too uncertain for plans
and futures have ways of falling down in mid-flight.
After awhile you learn that even sunshine
burns if you get too much so you plant your
own garden and decorate your own soul
instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.
And you learn that you really can endure
that you really are strong
and you really do have worth
and you learn
and you learn..."
- "Comes The Dawn" by Virginia Shopstall

"A woman's life can really be a succession of lives,
each revolving around some emotionally
compelling situation or challenge,
and each marked off by some intense experience."
_ Wallis, Duchess of Windsor 1896-1986

"...the greater part of our happiness
or misery
depends on our dispositions
and not on our circumstances."
- Martha Washington, 1731-1802 First lady

"You will do foolish things, but do them with enthusiasm."
- Colette 1873-1954 French writer

"One wonders what would happen in a society
in which there were no rules to break.
Doubtless everyone would quickly die of boredom."
- Susan Howatch, b. 1940 British writer

"Look twice before you leap."
- Charlotte Brontë, 1816-1855 English writer

" When choosing between two evils,
I always like to try the one
I've never tried before."
- Mae West, 1892-1980 American actress

"Life itself is the proper binge."
- Julia Child, b. 1912

"Life begets life.
Energy creates energy.
It is by spending oneself that one becomes rich."
- Sarah Bernhardt, 1844-1923 French actress

"Life is what happens to you
when you're making other plans."
- Betty Talmadge, 1924 American meat broker

"Fate keeps on happening."
- Anita Loos, 1893-1981 American writer

"...Some things... arrive on their own mysterious hour,
on their own terms and not yours,
to be seized or relinquished forever."
- Gail Godwin, b. 1937 American writer

"Why not seize the moment at once?
How often is happiness destroyed by preparation,
foolish preparation!"
- Jane Austen, 1775-1817 English writer

"Trouble is a part of your life,
and if you don't share it,
you don't give the person who loves you
enough chance to love you enough."
- Dinah Shore, b. 1917 American entertainer

" Look at everything as though you were seeing it
either for the first or last time.
Then your time on earth will be filled with glory."
- Betty Smith 5/28/96

" The best way to predict your future is to create it."
- Unknown

- Katharine Hepburn, b. 1909 American actress

"Age is something that doesn't matter,
unless you are a cheese"
- Billie Burke, 1886-1970 American actress

" One of the things about equality
is not just that you be treated
equally to a man,
but that you treat yourself equally to the way
you treat a man."
- Marlo Thomas, b.1943 American actress

" She did observe, with some dismay, that,
far from conquering all,
love lazily sidestepped practical problems."
- Jean Stafford, 1915-1979 American writer

" We can only learn to love by loving."
- Iris Murdoch, 1919 Irish writer

"...him that i love,
I wish to be free even from me."
- Anne Morrow Lindbergh, b. 1906 American writer and aviator

"Love is not enough.
It must be the foundation, the cornerstone-
but not the complete structure.
It is much too pliable, too yielding."
- Bette Davis, American actress

"I don't need a man to rectify my existence.
The most profound relationship will ever have
is the one with ourselves."
- Shirley MacLaine, b. 1934, American actress and dancer

"... love from one being to another
can only be
that two solitudes come nearer,
recognize and protect and comfort each other ."
- Han Suyin, b. 1917 Chinese writer and physician

" We all live in suspense,
from day to day, hour to hour;
in other words, we are the hero of our own story."
- Mary McCarthy, b.1912 American writer

" The only thing that makes life possible
is permanent, intolerable uncertainty; not knowing what comes next."
- Ursula K. Le Guin, b. 1929 American writer

" If only we'd stop trying to be happy,
we could have a pretty good time."
- Edith Wharton, !862-1937 American writer

"I like living.
I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly,
acutely miserable, racked with sorrow,
but through it all
I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing."
- Agatha Christie, 1890-1976 British writer



" Who knows the thoughts of a child?"
"A good cook is like a sorceress who dispenses happiness."
- Elsa Schiaparelli, 1907-1973 Italian fashion designer

"Part of the trouble is that I've never properly understood
that some disasters accumulate,
that they don't all land like a child out of an apple tree."
- Janet Burroway, b. 1937 American writer

" In youth we learn; in age we understand."
- Marie Ebner-Eschenbach, 1830-1916 Austrian writer

" Time-our youth-
it never really goes, does it?
It is all held in our minds."
- Helen Hoover Santmyer 1895-1986 American writer

" The beauty of the world, which is so soon to perish,
has two edges,
one of laughter,
one of anguish,
cutting the heart asunder."
-Virginia Woolf, 1882-1941 British writer

" There's a time when you have to explain to your children why they're born, and it's a marvelous thing if you know the reason by then."
- Hazel Scott, b.1920 Trinidad-born American musician

" Children require guidance and sympathy
far more than instruction."
- Anne Sullivan, 1866-1936 American Educator

" The only thing that seems eternal and natural
in motherhood is ambivalence."
- Jane Lazarre, b.1943 American writer

" A mother is neither cocky, nor proud,
because she knows the school principal may call at any minute
to report that her child
has just driven a motorcycle through the gymnasium."
- Mary Kay Blakely, b.1957 American writer

" Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing
is like shoveling the walk before it stops snowing."
- Phyllis Diller, b.1917 American entertainer

" Tears may be dried up but the heart- Never."
- Marguerite de Valois, 1553-1615 French princess and scholar

" We can do no great things- only small things with great Love."
- Mother Teresa, b. 1910 Yugoslavian Catholic missionary

" Fond as we are of our loved ones,
there comes at times during their absence
an unexplained peace."
- Anne Shaw, 1904-1982 American writer

" One never notices what has been done;
one can only see what remains to be done."
- Marie Curie, 1867-1934 French scientist

" Creative minds have always been known to survive
any kind of bad training."
-Anna Freud, 1895-1982 Austrian psychoanalyst

" Art is the only way to run away without leaving home."
- Twyla Tharp, b.1941 American choreographer

" The eye that directs a needle, in the delicate meshes of embroidery
will equally well bisect a star with the spider web of the micrometer."
- Maria Mitchell, 1818-1889 American astronomer and mathematician

" Don't compromise yourself.
You are all you've got."
- Janis Joplin, 1943-1970 American singer

" In passing, also, Iwould like to say that
the first time Adam had a chance he laid the blame on woman."
- Nancy Astor 1879-1964 British politician

" Women are repeatedly accused of taking things personally.
I cannot see an y other honest way of taking them."
- Marya Mannes, b. 1904 American writer

" A little of what you fancy does you good."
- Marie Lloyd, 1870-1922 English entertainer

" We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are."
- Anaïs Nin, 1903-1977 American writer

" Just remember, we're all in this alone."
- Lily Tomlin, b. 1939 American actress