February 6, 2012
Sign Up for Spitzer Daily Inspirations
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| To find inspiration, we're looking to such great sources as St. Peter, Aristotle, Winston Churchill and writers like Sir Walter Scott. |
Fr. Robert Spitzer has a saying about the Four Levels of Happiness®: “Level 3 has to be chosen again and again.” It is not our default drive, but it can be a product of our freedom and our choices. But choosing it, day in and day out, takes discipline and thought.
This challenge prompted the Diocese of Phoenix to give us a great suggestion a while back. Why don’t we provide a more regular way to help people start their day with some inspiration? Ideally, it should be something very brief, like a single quote, to remind people of the ideas they explored more fully in taking the Journey to Excellence program.
The result was a new service called Spitzer Daily Inspirations, which are actually sent out three times per week on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Some of the quotes are taken from faith-based sources, such as the Bible, the saints, and the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Others come from philosophers and other thinkers and leaders throughout the ages.
“We’ve received a lot of positive feedback from our friends in Phoenix when they started to receive this new service,” says Jim Berlucchi, the Center’s executive director. “All of us start our days with a long to-do list and not enough time to get it all done, which is why people like a brief message that helps them remember ideals they don’t want to lose in the hubbub.
“Given their popularity in Phoenix, we’ve decided to make them available to all of our supporters and subscribers. If you’d like to be on the mailing list to receive these Inspirations three times a week, you can sign up at this page.”
Below you’ll find a sampling of the quotes we’ve sent out so far. A full list of quotes sent to date can be found here.
Moral excellence comes about as a result of habit. We become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts.
– Aristotle
Sow a thought and you reap an act.
Sow an act and you reap a habit.
Sow a habit and you reap a character.
Sow a character and you reap a destiny.
– Charles Reade (1814-1884)
Make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love.
– 2 Peter 1:5-7
Nothing can happen to me that God doesn’t want. And all that He wants, no matter how bad it may appear to us, is really for the best.
– St. Thomas Moore, letter from prison to daughter
Four virtues play a pivotal role and accordingly are called “cardinal,” all the others are grouped around them. They are: prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance.
– CCC 1805
There never did and never will exist anything permanently noble and excellent in a character which was a stranger to the exercise of resolute self-denial.
– Sir Walter Scott
Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.
– Henry Ford
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Last changed: Mar 10 2010 at 12:23 PM