Miscellaneous quotes I have collected over the years I hope you find them inspirational, or at least interesting. I know I do.
According to an ancient allegory, Truth and Falsehood bathed together. Then Falsehood came ashore and ran away dressed in Truth's clothing, leaving Truth the choice of either putting on Falsehood's clothing or wearing no clothing at all. Truth chose none, from which evolved the English expression "the naked truth."
The possibility of stepping into a higher plane is quite real for everyone. It requires no force or effort or sacrifice. It involves little more than changing our ideas about what is normal. - Deepak Chopra, MD, author
Unnecessary possessions are unnecessary burdens. If you have them, you have to take care of them! There is great freedom in simplicity of living. It is those who have enough but not too much who are the happiest. - Peace Pilgrim 190?-1981
One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important. - Bertrand Russell
A gold medal is a wonderful thing, but if you're not enough without the medal, you'll never be enough with it. - from the movie Cool Runnings
No one ever went broke by saying no too often. - Harvey McKay
Honesty is as much saying everything as it is saying what is true. - Richard Snelling, Vermont Governor 19..-1991
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are. - Theodore Roosevelt
Things turn out best for the people who make the best of the way things turn out. - Art Linkletter
In any moment of decision the best thing you can do is the right thing. The worst thing you can do is nothing. - Theodore Roosevelt
The purpose of problems is to push you toward obedience to God's laws, which are exact and cannot be changed. We have the free will to obey them or disobey them. Obedience will bring harmony, disobedience will bring you more problems. - Peace Pilgrim 190?-1981
To speak and to speak well, are two things. A fool may talk, but a wise man speaks. - Ben Jonson
Be daring, be different, be impractical, be anything that will assert integrity of purpose and imaginative vision against the play-it-safers, the creatures of the commonplace, the slaves of the ordinary. - Sir Cecil Beaton
The best thing about giving of ourselves is that what we get is always better than what we give. The reaction is greater than the action. - Orison Swett Marden
Your Master Teacher knows all you need to learn, the perfect timing for your learning it, and the ideal way of teaching it to you. You don't create a Master Teacher-that's already been done. You discover your Master Teacher. - Peter McWilliams
What does not destroy me, makes me strong. [Or, What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.] - Friedrich Neitzche
A belief is not merely an idea the mind possesses; it is an idea that possesses the mind. - Robert Bolton
If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant: if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome. - Anne Bradstreet 1664
Watch out for emergencies. They are your big chance. - Fritz Reiner
Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do. - John Wooden
Show me a guy Who's afraid to look bad and I will show you a guy you can beat every time. - Rene Auberjonis
The world is not to be put in order, the world is order incarnate. It is for us to put ourselves in unison with this order. - Henry Miller
Minds, like bodies, will fall into a pimpled, ill-conditioned state from mere excess of comfort. - Charles Dickens
Make yourself indispensable, and you will move up. Act as though you are indispensable, and you will move out. - Jules Ormont
Be willing to be uncomfortable. Be comfortable being uncomfortable. It may get tough, but it's a small price to pay for living a dream. - Peter McWilliams
He who knows much about others may be learned, but he who understands himself is more intelligent. He who controls others may be powerful, but he who has mastered himself is mightier still. - Peter McWilliams
A committee is a group of people who individually can do nothing, but as a group decide nothing can be done. - Fred Allen
Reality is what we take to be true. What we take to be true is what we believe. What we believe is based on our perceptions. What we perceive depends on what we look for. What we look for depends on what we think. What we think depends on what we perceive. What we perceive determines what we take to be true. What we take to be true is our reality. - Zukav
Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature nor do the children of man as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing. - Helen Keller 1880-1968
Great works are performed not by strength but by perseverance. - Samuel Johnson
I don't eat junk foods and I don't think junk thoughts. - Peace Pilgrim 190? -1981
Hold a picture of yourself long and steadily enough in your mind's eye and you will be drawn toward it. Picture yourself vividly as winning and that alone will contribute immeasurably to success. Great living starts with a picture, held in your imagination, of what you would like to do or be. - Dr. Harry Emerson Fosdick 1878-1969, protestant minister
Whoever acquires knowledge but does not practice it, is as one who plows but does not sow. - Saadi
Guilt is never a rational thing; it distorts all faculties of the human mind, it perverts them, it leaves a man no longer in the free use of his reason, it puts him in confusion.
There are many who are living far below their possibilities because they are continually handing over their individualities to others. Do you want to be a power in the world? Then be yourself. Be true to the highest within your soul and then allow yourself to be governed by no customs or conventionalities or arbitrary man-made rules that are not founded on principle. - Ralph Waldo Trine
I always wanted to be somebody, but I should have been more specific. - Lily Tomlin
Good timber does not grow with ease; the stronger the wind, the stronger the trees. - J. Willard Marriott
If people concentrated on the really important things in life, there'd be a shortage of fishing poles. - Doug Larson
In the heating and air conditioning trade, the point on the thermostat in which neither heating nor cooling must operate-around 72 degrees-is called the "Comfort Zone." It's also known as the "Dead Zone." - Russell Bishop
Though no one can go back and make a brand new start my friend, anyone can start from now and make a brand new end. - Carl Bard
The essential conditions of everything you do must be choice, love, passion. - Nadia Boulanger
All that is needed to be successful is ignorance and self-confidence. Then you can't fail. - Mark Twain
Feel the fear and do it anyway. - Susan Jeffers
The first step toward change is awareness. The second step is acceptance. - Nathaniel Branden
Success with money, family, relationships, health, and careers is the ability to reach your personal objectives in the shortest time, with the least effort and with the fewest mistakes. The goals you set for yourself and the strategies you choose become your blueprint or plan. Strategies are like recipes: choose the right ingredients, mix them in the correct proportions, and you will always produce the same predictable results: in this case financial success. The success strategies for managing money and building wealth are called Money Strategies. By learning to use money strategies as a part of your day-to-day life, financial frustration and failure will become a thing of the past. - Charles Givens, author of Wealth Without Risk
When your views on the world and your intellect are being challenged and you begin to feel uncomfortable because of a contradiction you've detected that is threatening your current model of the world or some aspect of it, pay attention. You are about to learn something. This discomfort and intellectual conflict is when learning is taking place. - William Drury, Sr College of the Atlantic
Money is a good servant but a bad master.
The controlled person is a powerful person. He who always keeps his head will get ahead.
We will either find a way, or make one. - Hannibal
You've got to create a dream. You've got to uphold the dream. If you can't, go back to the factory or go back to the desk. - Eric Burdon
Prosperity belongs to those who learn new things the fastest. - Paul Pilzer
Everyone has an invisible sign hanging from their neck saying, "Make me feel important." Never forget this message when working with people. - Mary Kay Ash
Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms-to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way. - Victor Frankl
We learn simply by the exposure of living. Much that passes for education is not education at all but ritual. The fact is that we are being educated when we know it least. - David P Gardner
The easiest kind of relationship for me is with ten thousand people. The hardest is with one. - Joan Baez
You can judge your age by the amount of pain you feel when you come in contact with a new idea. - John Nuveen
The person with a fixed goal, a clear picture of his desire, or an ideal always before him, causes it, through repetition, to be buried deeply in his subconscious mind and is thus enabled, thanks to its generative and sustaining power, to realize his goal in a minimum of time and with a minimum of physical effort. Just pursue the thought unceasingly. Step by step you will achieve realization, for all your faculties and powers become directed to that end. - Claude Bristol, author of The Magic of Believing
Things don't go wrong and break your heart so you can become bitter and give up. They happen to break you down and build you up so you can be all that you were intended to be. - Charlie Tremendous Jones
You get paid to impact the world, not be impacted by it. - Mal Pancoast
Things don't go wrong and break your heart so you can become bitter and give up. They happen to break you down and build you up so you can be all that you were intended to be. - Charlie Tremendous Jones
You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, "I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along." You must do the thing you think you cannot do. - Eleanor Roosevelt
If the brain were so simple we could understand it, we would be so simple we couldn't. - Lyall Watson, biologist
No man can live happily who regards himself alone, who turns everything to his own advantage. Thou must live for another, if thou wishest to live for thyself. - Seneca
Never ignore a gut feeling, but never believe that it's enough. - Kermit the Frog (from "It's not easy being green")
A racehorse that consistently runs just a second faster than another horse is worth millions of dollars more. Be willing to give that extra effort that separates the winner from the one in second place. - H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
Some people come into our lives and quickly go. Some stay for awhile and leave footprints on our hearts. And we are never, ever the same. - Flavia
All men should try to learn before they die what they are running from, and to, and why. - James Thurber
You are beaten to earth? Well, well, what's that? Come up with a smiling face. It's nothing against you to fall down flat, but to lie there - that's a disgrace. - Edmund Cooke
In the real world, nothing happens at the right place at the right time. It is the job of journalists and historians to correct that. - Mark Twain
Happiness radiates like the fragrance from a flower, and draws all good things toward you. Allow your love to nourish yourself as well as others. Do not strain after the needs of life. It is sufficient to be quietly alert and aware of them. In this way life proceeds more naturally and effortlessly. Life is here to Enjoy! - Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
Anything you cannot relinquish when it has outlived its usefulness possesses you, and in this materialistic age a great many of us are possessed by our possessions. - Peace Pilgrim 190? -1981
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has. - Margaret Mead
When we put things off until some future - probably mythical - Laterland, we drag the past into the future. The burden of yesterday's incompletion is a heavy load to carry. Don't carry it. - Peter McWilliams
All truth goes through three steps: First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Finally, it is accepted as self-evident.
This is how it happens. We get the Dream, but we don't get to dictate every step toward the dream. - Peter McWilliams
There are many who are living far below their possibilities because they are continually handing over their individualities to others. Do you want to be a power in the world? Then be yourself. Be true to the highest within your soul and then allow yourself to be governed by no customs or conventionalities or arbitrary man-made rules that are not founded on principle. - Ralph Waldo Trine
Deep withion man dwell those slumbering powers;powers that would astonish him, that he never dreamed of possessing;forces that would revolutionize his life if aroused and put into action. - Orison Swett Marden
Nothing happens unless first a dream. - Carl Sandburg
Set up the listening. Prepare who you are talking to for what you want them to hear. Get people to listen as a possibility rather than a problem. - Mal Pancoast
I know not what others may choose but, as for me, give me liberty or give me death. - Patrick Henry
What's money? A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do. - Bob Dylan
I would as soon appear before an audience half clothed as half prepared. - Daniel Webster
Since nothing we intend is ever faultless, and nothing we attempt ever without error, and nothing we achieve without some measure of finitude and fallibility we call humanness, we are saved by forgiveness. - David Augsnurger
No one would remember the Good Samaritan if he only had good intentions. He had money as well. - Margaret Thatcher
We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us happy is something to be enthusiastic about. - Charles Kingsley
Life is the movie you see through your own eyes. It makes little difference what's happening out there. It's how you take it that counts.
The past should be a springboard not a hammock. - Irving Ball
Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time; it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable. - Sydney J Harris
There is enough in the world for everyone to have plenty, to live happily, and to be at peace with his neighbors. - Harry Truman
Guts are a combination of confidence, courage, conviction, strength of character, stick-to-itiveness, pugnaciousness, backbone, and intestinal fortitude. They are mandatory for anyone who wants to get to and stay at the top. - D A Benton, author of Lions Don't Need to Roar
On the anger habit: Do not suppress it-that would hurt you inside. Do not express it-this would not only hurt you inside, it would cause ripples in your surroundings. What you do is transform it. -Peace Pilgrim 190? -1981
The road to success is always under construction. - Lily Tomlin
The beginning of a habit is like an invisible thread, but every time we repeat the act we strengthen the strand, add to it another filament, until it becomes a great cable and binds us irrevocably thought and act. - Orison Swett Marden
Creativity, as has been said, consists largely of rearranging what we know in order to find out what we do not know....Hence, to think creatively, we must be able to look afresh at what we normally take for granted. - George Kneller
I'd rather be a flop at show business than to be a success at something I didn't like. - George Burns
Since nothing we intend is ever faultless, and nothing we attempt ever without error, and nothing we achieve without some measure of finitude and fallibility we call humanness, we are saved by forgiveness. - David Augsnurger
True silence is the rest of the mind; it is to the spirit what sleep is to the body, nourishment and refreshment. - William Penn
Professionalism is knowing how to do it, when to do it, and doing it. - Frank Tyger
It is not enough to have a good mind; the main thing is to use it well. - Rene Descartes
Men do not die from overwork. They die from dissipation and worry. - Charles Evans Hughes, former Chief Justice Supreme Court
Procrastination is the fear of success. People procrastinate because they are afraid of the success that they know will result if they move ahead now. Because success is heavy, carries a responsibility with it, it is much easier to procrastinate and live on the "someday I'll" philosophy.
We don't receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for us or spare us. - Marcel Proust
The world is moving so fast these days that the man who says it can't be done is generally interrupted by someone doing it. - Dr. Harry Emerson Fosdick 1878-1969, protestant minister
Children need models rather than critics. - Joseph Joubert Persees
Ideas not coupled with action never become bigger than the brain cells they occupied. - Arnold Glasow
If you are lonely when you are alone, you are in bad company. - Jean-Paul Sartre
Mistakes show us what we need to learn. - Peter McWilliams
Perfection consists not in doing extraordinary things, but in doing ordinary things extraordinarily well. - Angelique Arnauld
The irony is that the person not taking risks feels the same amount of fear as the person who regularly takes risks. - Peter McWilliams
The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you're still a rat. - Lily Tomlin
God gave burdens, also shoulders. - Yiddish Proverb
Children need models rather than critics. - Joseph Joubert Persees
When asked what he would do if he only had six months to live: "Type faster." - Isaac Asimov
There is only one success-to be able to spend your life in your own way. - Christopher Morley
The reason we feel hurt and anger when things and people outside us let us down is because we believe those things and people shouldn't. Well, sorry, that's not life here on earth. - Peter McWilliams
Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.
I would rather think of life as a good book. The further you get into it, the more it begins to come together and make sense. - Rabbi Harold Kushner
To get what you want, STOP doing what isn't working. - Dennis Weaver
This is an old Indian saying: When you where born, you cried and the world rejoiced, live your life in such a manner that when you die the world cries and you rejoice.
Speech is a barometer of spirituality, for it reveals what is in the heart.
People may not always believe what you say, but they will always believe what you do.
You gotta cry without weeping, talk without speaking, scream without raising your voice.
Only boring people get bored.
Every creator painfully experiences the chasm between his inner vision and its ultimate expression. - Isaac Bashevis Singer
When your values are clear to you, making decisions becomes easier. - Roy Disney
It is the mind that maketh good or ill, that maketh wretch or happy, rich or poor. - Edmund Spenser
If you realized how powerful your thoughts are, you would never think a negative thought. - Peace Pilgrim 190?-1981
Make it a rule of life never to regret and never to look back. Regret is an appalling waste of energy; you can't build on it; it's only good for wallowing in. - Katherine Mansfield
Hold a picture of yourself long and steadily enough in your mind's eye and you will be drawn toward it. Picture yourself vividly as winning and that alone will contribute immeasurably to success. Great living starts with a picture, held in your imagination, of what you would like to do or be. - Dr. Harry Emerson Fosdick 1878-1969, protestant minister
To know oneself, one should assert oneself. - Albert Camus
"I hear and I forget; I see and I remember; I do and I understand." - An old Chinese saying
Writing is turning one's worst moments into money. - J P Donleavy
Every creator painfully experiences the chasm between his inner vision and its ultimate expression. - Isaac Bashevis Singer
Laziness is nothing more than the habit of resting before you get tired. - Jules Renard
The impersonal hand of government can never replace the helping hand of a neighbor. - Hubert Humphrey
I would rather think of life as a good book. The further you get into it, the more it begins to come together and make sense. - Rabbi Harold Kushner
The mind is just another muscle. - Ted Turner
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. - Edmund Burke
Look, I really don't want to wax philosophic, but I will say that if you're alive, you got to flap your arms and legs, you got to jump around a lot, you got to make a lot of noise, because life is the very opposite of death. And therefore, as I see it, if you're quiet, you're not living. You've got to be noisy, or at least your thoughts should be noisy and colorful and lively. - Mel Brooks
Good timber does not grow with ease;the stronger the wind, the stronger the trees. - J. Willard Marriott
If you want to know Jesus, get to know God’s Word. You cannot separate Jesus from the Word of God any more than you can separate the wet from the water. In fact, you cannot separate yourself from your own words. You are only as good as your words, for you are the sum total of all you have been believing and saying about yourself. So, if you do not like who you are, get to know Jesus and begin saying what He says about you! - Crenshaw Christian Center
Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it. - George Santayana
The reason we feel hurt and anger when things and people outside us let us down is because we believe those things and people shouldn't. Well, sorry, that's not life here on earth. - Peter McWilliams
Whoever acquires knowledge but does not practice it, is as one who plows but does not sow. - Saadi
My philosophy is that not only are you responsible for your life, but doing the best at this moment puts you in the best place for the next moment. - Oprah Winfrey
Fear is that little darkroom where negatives are developed. - Michael Pritchard
Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been. - Mark Twain
The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance-it is the illusion of knowledge. - Daniel J Boorstin
Learn to enjoy every minute of your life. Be happy now. Don't wait for something outside of yourself to make you happy in the future -- Think how really precious is the time you have to spend, whether it's at work or with your family. Every minute should be enjoyed, savored. - Earl Nightingale - 1989
The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others. - Mahatma Gandhi
Shallow men believe in luck, believe in circumstances: It was somebody's name, or he happened to be there at the time, or it was so then, and another day it would have been otherwise. Strong men believe in cause and effect. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
The Sun, with all those planets revolving around it and dependent upon it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as if it had nothing else in the Universe to do. - Galileo
We are continually faced by great opportunities brilliantly disguised as insoluble problems. - Lee Iococca
Pick battles big enough to matter, small enough to win. - Jonathon Kozol
We are not responsible for every thought that goes wandering through our mind. We are, however, responsible for the ones we hold there. We're especially responsible for the one's we put there. - Peter McWilliams
The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy. - Martin Luther King
One extends one's limits only by exceeding them. - M Scott Peck, author of The Road Less Traveled & others
The ultimate test of a relationship is to disagree but to hold hands. -Alexandria Penney
Nothing adventured, nothing attained. - Peter McWilliams
Opportunities multiply as they are seized, they die when neglected. - John Wicker
Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom. - Bertrand Russell
Respond intelligently even to unintelligent treatmant.
The possibility of stepping into a higher plane is quite real for everyone. It requires no force or effort or sacrifice. It involves little more than changing our ideas about what is normal. - Deepak Chopra, MD, author
Whatever we plant in our subconscious mind and nourish with repetition and emotion will one day become a reality. - Earl Nightingale -1989
Often the difference between a successful man and a failure is not one's better abilities or ideas, but the courage that one has to bet on his ideas, to take a calculated risk-and to act. - Maxwell Maltz
That old law about "an eye for an eye" leaves everybody blind. The time is always right to do the right thing. - Martin Luther King
A different world cannot be built by indifferent people. - Peter Marshall
If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well. - Martin Luther King
Do not anxiously hope for that which is not yet come; do not vainly regret what is already past.
A faith to live by, a self to live with, and a purpose to live for.
Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don't resist them-that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.
The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it. - Theodore Roosevelt
Loser's visualize the penalties of failure. Winners visualize the rewards of success. - Dr. Rob Gilbert
The trouble with so many of us is that we underestimate the power of simplicity. We have a tendency it seems to over complicate our lives and forget what's important and what's not. We tend to mistake movement for achievement. We tend to focus on activities instead of results. And as the pace of life continues to race along in the outside world, we forget that we have the power to control our lives regardless of what's going on outside. - Robert Stuberg
Praying without ceasing is not ritualized, nor are there even words. It is a constant state of awareness of oneness with God. - Peace Pilgrim 190?-1981
A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself.
There is only one thing for us to do, and that is to do our level best right where we are every day of our lives; to use our best judgment, and then to trust the rest to that Power which holds the forces of the universe in his hand. - Orison Swett Marden
Always remember, others may hate you, but those who hate you don't win unless you hate them-and then you destroy yourself. - Richard Milhouse Nixon 1913-1994
Telling someone the truth is a loving act. - Mal Pancoast
Look for a thing until you find it and you'll not lose your labor.
If you don't do it excellently, don't do it at all. Because if it's not excellent, it won't be profitable or fun, and if you're not in business for fun or profit, what the hell are you doing there? - Robert Townsend
Pessimism never won any battle. - Dwight D Eisenhower
Remember, no human condition is ever permanent. Then you will not be overjoyed in good fortune nor too scornful in misfortune. - Socrates
Wisdom is knowing what to do next, skill is knowing how to do it, and virtue is doing it. - David Starr Jordan
No one is blinder than he who will not see. - from song "I Fall Down" by U2
If it's so dirty to be naked, why do we get naked to get clean?
People generally have too many opinions and not enough convictions.
Between tomorrow's dream and yesterday's regret is today's opportunity.
God makes a promise -- faith believes it, hope anticipates it, patience quietly awaits it.
The person who looks up to God rarely looks down on people.
The person who really wants to do something finds a way; others find an excuse.
It is our duty to obey God's commands, not to direct His counsels.
Regard doubt as an invitation to think.
Prejudice cannot see things that are, because it is always looking for things that aren't.
Unnecessary possessions are unnecessary burdens. If you have them, you have to take care of them! There is great freedom in simplicity of living. It is those who have enough but not too much who are the happiest. - Peace Pilgrim 190?-1981
Loyalty to a petrified opinion never broke a chain or freed a human soul. - Mark Twain
When you see a thing clearly in your mind, your creative "success mechanism" within you takes over and does the job much better than you could do it by conscious effort or "willpower."