Quotes are always something that I have enjoyed looking at. You can never read too many quotes, I have read over two billion, three hundred and forty six million, two hundred and seventy six thousand, and eight quotes.* Some people look to a Bible for wisdom, and while I’m not religious in the traditional sense, I can certainly agree with the power that wise words have. Perhaps that is why the Bible has been so effective in…influencing…today’s society. Anyhow, here are some of my favorite quotes that I’ve found over the years.
Belief:
“Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.” -Buddah
Character:
“To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best night and day to make you like everybody else means to fight the hardest battle any human being can fight and never stop fighting.” - E. E. Cummings
“Anyone who has a continuous smile on his face conceals a toughness that is almost frightening.” -Greta Garbo
“A man’s reputation is what other people think of him; his character is what he really is.” -Unknown
“I am responsible. Although I may not be able to prevent the worst from happening, I am responsible for my attitude toward the inevitable misfortunes that darken life. Bad things do happen; how I respond to them defines my character and the quality of my life. I can choose to sit in perpetual sadness, immobilized by the gravity of my loss, or I can choose to rise from the pain and treasure the most precious gift I have – life itself.” -Walter Anderson
Change:
“When you’re finished changing, you’re finished.” -Benjamin Franklin
“If you want to truly understand something, try to change it.” -Kurt Lewin
“The key to change… is to let go of fear.” -Rosanne Cash
“Change is inevitable - except from a vending machine.” -Robert C. Gallagher
“We must remember that one determined person can make a significant difference, and that a small group of determined people can change the course of history.” -Sonia Johnson
“What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others.” -Pericles
“Life can either be accepted or changed. If it is not accepted, it must be changed. If it cannot be changed, then it must be accepted.” -Unknown
Decision:
“Your decision to be, have and do something out of ordinary entails facing difficulties that are out of the ordinary as well. Sometimes your greatest asset is simply your ability to stay with it longer than anyone else.” -Brian Tracy
“Deliberate with caution, but act with decision; and yield with graciousness, or oppose with firmness.” -Charles Hole
“I just decided I wanted to become someone else… So I became someone else.” -Dusty Springfield
“The doors we open and close each day decide the lives we live.” -Flora Whittemore
“Decide what you want, decide what you are willing to exchange for it. Establish your priorities and go to work.” -H.L. Hunt
“Sometimes it’s the smallest decisions that can change your life forever.” -Keri Russell
“Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.” -Martin Luther King Jr.
Defeat:
‘What is in defeat? Nothing but education; nothing but the first step to something better” -Wendell Phillips
Dreams:
“Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.” -Albert Einstein
“We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of the dream. Wandering by lone sea breakers, and sitting by desolate streams. World losers and world forsakers, for whom the pale moon gleams. Yet we are movers and the shakers of the world forever it seems.” -Authur William Edgar O’Shaughnessy
“To dream anything that you want to dream. That’s the beauty of the human mind. To do anything that you want to do. That is the strength of the human will. To trust yourself to test your limits. That is the courage to succeed.” -Bernard Edmonds
“You see things; and you say, ‘Why?’ But I dream things that never were; and I say, ‘Why not?’” -George Bernard Shaw
“I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavours to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him; or the old laws be expanded, and interpreted in his favour in a more liberal sense, and he will live with the license of a higher order of beings. In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness. If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.” -Henry David Thoreau
“The best thing about dreams is that fleeting moment, when you are between asleep and awake, when you don’t know the difference between reality and fantasy, when for just that one moment you feel with your entire soul that the dream is reality, and it really happened.” -Unknown
“The impossible - what nobody can do until somebody does” -Unknown
Education:
“I never teach my pupils; I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn.” -Albert Einstein
“If you are planning for a year, sow rice; if you are planning for a decade, plant trees; if you are planning for a lifetime, educate people” -Chinese Proverb
“Tell me and I’ll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I’ll understand.” -Chinese Proverb
“Learn everything you can, anytime you can, from anyone you can - there will always come a time when you will be grateful you did.” -Sarah Caldwell
Entrepreneurs:
“Don’t wait until everything is just right. It will never be perfect. There will always be challenges, obstacles and less than perfect conditions. So what. Get started now. With each step you take, you will grow stronger and stronger, more and more skilled, more and more self-confident and more and more successful.” -Mark Victor Hansen
“Entrepreneurs are simply those who understand that there is little difference between obstacle and opportunity and are able to turn both to their advantage.” -Niccolo Machiavelli
“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” -Steve Jobs
“Every accomplishment starts with the decision to try.” -Unknown
“So many fail because they don’t get started - they don’t go. They don’t overcome inertia. They don’t begin.” -W. Clement Stone
Intelligence:
“I’ve always felt that a person’s intelligence is directly reflected by the number of conflicting points of view he can entertain simultaneously on the same topic.” -Abigail Adams
Life:
“Promise me you’ll always remember: You’re braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think. Christopher Robin to Pooh” -A.A. Milne
“And in the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.” -Abraham Lincoln
“Just as treasures are uncovered from the earth, so virtue appears from good deeds, and wisdom appears from a pure and peaceful mind. To walk safely through the maze of human life, one needs the light of wisdom and the guidance of virtue.” -Buddha
“The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, the education, the money, than circumstances, than failure, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company… a church… a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice everyday regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past… we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude. I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it. And so it is with you… we are in charge of our Attitudes.” -Charles R. Swindoll
“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. To keep our faces toward change and behave like free spirits in the presence of fate is strength undefeatable.” -Helen Keller
“When we long for life without difficulties, remind us that oaks grow strong in contrary winds and diamonds are made under pressure” -Peter Marshall
“I see my path, but I don’t know where it leads. Not knowing where I’m going is what inspires me to travel it.” -Rosalia de Castro
“One day your life will flash before your eyes. Make sure its worth watching.” -Unknown
Math:
“Mathematics allows for no hypocrisy and no vagueness.” -Stendhal
Miscellaneous:
“I reject your reality and substitute it for my own.” -Adam Savage
“Search others for their virtues, thy self for thy vices” - Benjamin Franklin
“In the practice of tolerance, one’s enemy is the best teacher.” -Dalai Lama
“One day soon the Gillette company will announce the development of a razor that, thanks to a computer microchip, can actually travel ahead in time and shave beard hairs that don’t even exist yet” -Dave Barry
“Expecting the world to treat you fairly because you are a good person is a little like expecting a bull not to attack you because you are a vegetarian” -Dennis Whorley
“Do all the good you can, in all the ways you can, to all the souls you can, in every place you can, at all the times you can, with all the zeal you can, as long as ever you can” -John Wesley
“All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them.” -Galileo Galilei
“Set your expectations high; find men and women whose integrity and values you respect; get their agreement on a course of action; and give them your ultimate trust.” -John Akers
“Unless commitment is made, there are only promises and hopes; but no plans.” -Peter F. Drucker
“Risk-taking, trust, and serendipity are key ingredients of joy. Without risk, nothing new ever happens. Without trust, fear creeps in. Without serendipity, there are no surprises.” -Rita Golden Gelman
“The only Zen you find on tops of mountains is the Zen you bring there” -Robert M. Pirsig
“Good habits, once established are just as hard to break as are bad habits” -Robert Puller
“Love and work are the cornerstones of our humanness” -Sigmund Freud
“The greatest barrier to success is the fear of failure.” -Sven Goran Eriksson
“Watch your thoughts, for they become words.
Watch your words, for they become actions.
Watch your actions, for they become habits.
Watch your habits, for they become character.
Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.” -Unknown
“Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom. Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power.” -Unknown
“There’s a difference between interest and commitment. When you’re interested in doing something, you do it only when circumstance permit. When you’re committed to something, you accept no excuses, only results.” -Unknown
“Everything in life is connected somehow. You may have to dig deep to find it but its there. Everything is the same even though its different. Somehow everything connects back with your life. The faces in certain places may be different, but the situation is the same. Irony is a hidden factor that creeps around us in life, letting its presence felt only after it has left. Picture back to a year ago and the situation you were in. Look at how things are different yet somehow everything it still in someway cognate. Everything connects together to form the balance of life, to maintain structure. Change is and always will be inevitable, but everything is relative, and all the moments and times in your life will come back around again, you just might find yourself on the other side of the coin. Things are always changing, as fast as everything stays the same.” - Unknown
“It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.” -Voltaire
Mistakes:
“Making a wrong decision is understandable. Refusing to search continually for learning is not.” -Philip Crosby
Opportunity:
“An obstacle is often an unrecognized opportunity” -Unknown
Persistence:
“Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan “press on” has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race” -Calvin Coolidge
Quotes:
“To quote copiously and well requires taste, judgment and erudition, a feeling for the beautiful, an appreciation of the noble, and a sense of the profound” -Christian Nevell Bovee
“Quotations help us remember the simple yet profound truths that give life perspective and meaning. When it comes to life’s most important lessons, we can all use gentle reminders.” -Chriswell Freeman
“I love quotations because it is a joy to find thoughts one might have, beautifully expressed with much authority by someone recognizably wiser than oneself.” -Marlene Dietrich
“It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations. The quotations, when engraved upon the memory, give you good thoughts. They also make you anxious to read the authors and look for more.” -Winston Churchill
Regret:
“I would much rather have regrets about not doing what people said, than regretting not doing what my heart led me to and wondering what life had been like if I’d just been myself.” -Brittany Renée
Success:
“Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life - think of it, dream of it, live on that idea. Let the brain, muscles, nerves, every part of your body, be full of that idea, and just leave every other idea alone. This is the way to success, that is way great spiritual giants are produced.” -Swami Vivekananda
* - Actual number is subject to change and reliablity of quoted figure is ~0.0001% correct. Always read the fine print!
