Quotes

  • Ability – Determination- – -The only good luck many great people ever had was being born with ability and determination to overcome bad luck.- – -Channing Pollock
  • Achievement- – -God will not look you over for medals, degrees, or diplomas, but for scars.- – -Elbert Hubbard
  • The highest reward for man’s toil is not what he gets for it, but what he becomes by it.- – -John Ruskin
  • Achievement – Worth A true measure of your worth includes all the benefits others have gained from your success.- – -Cullen Hightower
  • Adversity – Challenge- – -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, Jr. in Strength of Love, 1963.
  • - – -Adversity is like a strong wind. It tears away from us all but the things that cannot be torn, so that we see ourselves as we really are. – - -Arthur Golden
  • Advertising – Consumers- – -The consumer isn’t a moron; she is your wife. You insult her intelligence if you assume that a mere slogan and a few vapid adjectives will persuade her to buy anything.- – -David Ogilvy
  • Bear in mind that the consumer is not a moron. She is your wife. Don’t insult her intelligence.- – -David Ogilvy
  • Age – Wisdom- – -That is the great fallacy: the wisdom of old men. They do not grow wise, they grow careful.- – -Ernest Hemingway
  • Alcohol – Drinking- – -Drink has never made a man better, but it made many a man think he was better.- – -Finley Peter Dunne
  • Argument- – -You have not converted a man, because you have silenced him.- – - Lord John Morely
  • Aspirations – Goals – Dreams- – -Far away there in the sunshine are my highest aspirations. I may not reach them, but I can look up and see their beauty, believe in them, and try to reach them.- – -Louisa May Alcott
  • Authority – Wisdom- – -Authority without wisdom is like a heavy ax without an edge: fitter to bruise than to polish.- – -Anne Bradstreet
  • Baseball- – -Baseball may be the nation’s game; With throw and run and hit; But first among the skills, it seems, Is learning how to spit.- – -Art Buck
  • Beauty – Words- – -Words can be beautiful, so can dreams, so can hopes.- – -F. Clifton White
  • Best- – -Doing your best at this moment puts you in the best place for the next moment.- – -Oprah Winfrey
  • Brain- – -Not even the universe with its countless millions of galaxies represents greater wonder or complexity than the human brain. The human brain is a mirror to infinity. There is no limit to its range, scope, or capacity for creative growth.- – -Norman Cousins in Head First
  • Brave – Courage- – -You can’t be brave if you only had wonderful things happen to you.- – -Mary Tyler Moore
  • Calling- – -If a man is called to be a streetsweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven played 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 streetsweeper who did his job well.- – -Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr
  • Cats- – -There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats.- – -Albert Schweitzer
  • - – -You will always be lucky if you know how to make friends with a strange cat.- – -Colonial American proverb
  • - – -One cat leads to another.- – -Ernest Hemingway
  • Champions- – -Champions aren’t made in gyms. They are made from something they have deep inside them: a desire, a dream, a vision. They have to have the skill, and the will. But the will must be stronger than the skill.- – -Muhammad Ali
  • Change – Improve- – -It’s never too late, in fiction or in life, to revise.- – -Nancy Thayer in Morning (Scribner)
  • Character – Sports- – -Sports do not build character. They reveal it.- – -Haywood Hale Brown
  • Character – Suffering- – -Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired, and success achieved.- – -Helen Keller
  • Children- – -Don’t worry that children never listen to you; worry that they are always watching you. Robert Fulghum
  • Circumstances – Future- – -You have to accept whatever comes, and the only important thing is that you meet it with courage and with the best you have to give.- – -Eleanor Roosevelt
  • Complaining- – -The man who complains about the way the ball bounces is likely the one who dropped it.- – -Lou Holtz
  • Computers- – -Never let a computer know you’re in a hurry.- – -Anonymous
  • You go to your TV to turn your brain off. You go to the computer when you want to turn- – -your brain on.- – -Steve Jobs
  • Confidence – Self-esteem- – -To feel valued, to know that, if only once in a while that you can do a job well, is a marvelous feeling.- – -Barbara Walters
  • Courage- – -Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees all the others.- – -Winston Churchill
  • Courage – Fear- – -Courage is not the absence of fear but the ability to carry on with dignity in spite of it.- – -Scott Turow in The Burden of Proof
  • Customer – Deliver- – -Discover what the customer wants. Deliver plus one.- – -Ken Blanchard
  • Democracy – Minority- – -Democracy cannot survive without the guidance of a creative minority.- – -Harlan F. Stone
  • Discipline- – -Everybody is creative, and everybody is talented. I just don’t think that everybody is- – -disciplined. I think that’s a rare commodity.- – -Al Hirschfeld
  • Emotion- – -You need to talk to yourself all the time. Ninety percent of your emotion comes from inner dialog, and the key is to explain things to yourself in a positive way.
  • Encouragement – Creativity – Leadership- – -Creativity is so delicate a flower that praise tends to make it bloom, while discouragement often nips it in the bud. Any of us will put out more and better ideas if our efforts are appreciated.- – -Alex F. Osborn
  • Experience- – -If we could sell our experiences for what they cost us, we’d all be millionaires.- – -Oscar Wilde
  • Failure – Disappointment You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don’t try.- – -Beverly Sills
  • Failure – Greatness He who has never failed somewhere, that man cannot be great.- – -Herman Melville
  • Faith – Health Faith can have a profound impact on health. It is a personal experience of thought and surrender, which can comfort in every situation. Faith is free and available to all people at all times. It only requires that one fully embrace possibility, and the ultimate value is in the depth of the embrace.- – -Patch Adams, M.D. in House Call (Robert D. Reed)
  • Faith – Worry – Sorrow Sorrow looks back, worry looks around, faith looks up.- – -Ralph Waldo Emerson
  • Fame – Celebrity The nice thing about being a celebrity is that, if you bore people, they think it’s their fault.- – -Henry Kissinger
  • Flattery Flattery is the art of telling a person exactly what he thinks of himself.- – -Paul H. Gilbert
  • Freedom My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular.- – -Adlai E. Stevenson
  • Free Enterprise The free market is in accordance with the golden rule. We advance ourselves as we help others. The more we help others, the more we receive in return.- – -Percy L. Greaves, Jr.
  • Friendship – Love The truest test of someone’s feelings for you is their reaction to your mistakes.- – -Ray Messer
  • Future – Perspective Nothing ages so quickly as yesterday’s version of the future.- – -Richard Corliss in Time
  • Giving – Giver The heart of the giver makes the gift dear and precious.- – -Martin Luther
  • Giving – Growth Each time we ask more of ourselves than we think we are able to give, and we manage to give it, we grow.- – -Bert Decker
  • Giving – Gift Every gift which is given, even though it be small, is in reality great, if it is given with affection.- – -Pindar
  • Giving – Health Giving is a secret of a healthy life. Not necessarily money, but whatever a man has of encouragement and sympathy and understanding.- – -John D. Rockefeller, Jr.
  • Giving – Teaching He who gives to me teaches me to give.- – -Martin Luther
  • Goals When you don’t know what you want, you often end up where you don’t want to be.- – -Bob Greene
  • Goals Determine that the thing can and shall be done, and then we shall find the way.- – -Abraham Lincoln
  • God We come closest to God at our lowest moments. It’s easiest to hear God when you are stripped of pride and arrogance, when you have nothing to rely on except God. It’s pretty painful to get to that point, but when you do, God is there.- – -Terry Anderson in Our Sunday Visitor
  • Golf The ugliest three words in golf are, “Still your shot.”- – -Dave Marr
  • Gossip There’s so much bad in the best of us, And so much good in the worst of us, That it doesn’t behoove any of us To talk about the rest of us.- – -Unknown
  • Greatness – Failure You will become as small as your controlling desire; as great as your dominant aspiration.- – -James Allen
  • Happiness – Achievement – Creativity Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort.- – -Franklin Roosevelt
  • Happiness – Opportunity When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.- – -Helen Keller
  • Happiness – Work I have discovered the secret of happiness. It is work, either with the hands or the head. The moment I have something to do, the draughts are open and my chimney draws, and I am happy.- – -John Burroughs
  • Helping – Joy It is one of the most beautiful compensations of this life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.- – -Ralph Waldo Emerson
  • Humanity One of the qualities that separate us two-legged animals from the four-legged ones is compassion. It is what makes us stand up tall instead of crawling about on all fours. And standing up tall is what frees our arms to reach out to a fellow being and say, “Let me help you.”- – -Beverly Sills
  • Humor, Sense of A keen sense of humor helps us to overlook the unbecoming, understand the unconventional, tolerate the unpleasant, and outlast the unbearable.- – -Billy Graham
  • Importance – Self-esteem Lack of something to feel important about is the greatest tragedy you can have.- – -Arthur A. Morgan
  • Inclusive We’re all only fragile threads, but what a tapestry we make.- – -Jerry Ellis
  • Insight You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.- – -Mark Twain
  • Job – Success Have the mental equipment to do your job, then take the job seriously, yourself not too seriously.- – -Frances Willis
  • Joy – Self Forget yourself by becoming interested in others. Every day do a good deed that will put a smile of joy on someone’s face.- – -Dale Carnegie
  • Kindness Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless.- – -Mother Teresa
  • Laughter Laughter is the brush that sweeps away the cobwebs of the heart.- – -Mort Walker
  • Leadership A leader’s role is to raise people’s aspirations for what they can become and to release their energies so they will try to get there.- – -David Gergen (U.S. News & World Report)
  • Leadership You cannot be a leader, and ask others to follow you, unless you know how to follow too.- – -Sam Rayburn
  • Leadership One measure of leadership is the caliber of people who choose to follow you.- – -Dennis A. Peer
  • Learn – Try – Chance People wish to learn to swim and at the same time to keep one foot on the ground.- – -Marcel Proust
  • Life In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life. It goes on.- – -Robert Frost
  • Life – Living Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influences of each.- – -Henry David Thoreau
  • Life – Problems To the question of life, you are the only answer: To the problems of life, you are the only solution.- – -Author unknown
  • Love The best proof of love is trust.- – -Joyce Brothers
  • Love Love is something like the clouds that were in the sky before the sun came out. You cannot touch the clouds, you know; but you feel the rain and know how glad the flowers are to have it after a hot day. You cannot touch love either; but you feel the sweetness that it pours into everything. Without love you would not be happy or want to play.- – -Annie Sullivan
  • Love – Faith Love is an act of faith, and whoever is of little faith is also of little love.- – -Erich Fromm
  • Love – God – First When I have learned to love God better than my earthly dearest, I shall love my earthly dearest better than I do now…. When first things are put first, second things are not suppressed but increased.- – -C.S. Lewis
  • Love – Gravity Gravity cannot be responsible for people falling in love.- – -Albert Einstein
  • Love – Pleasure There is more pleasure in loving than in being loved.- – -Thomas Fuller
  • Love – Power From its universal source, love permeates everything. It is the ultimate power, because without using force, love brings everything to it. Compared to love, all other forms of power are feeble.- – -Deepak Chopra
  • Luck – Preparation Chance favors the prepared mind.- – -Louis Pasteur
  • Manners – Wisdom- – -At a dinner party one should eat wisely but not too well, and talk well but not too wisely.- – -W. Somerset Maugham
  • Memory – Happiness- – -A happy memory is on earth perhaps truer than happiness.- – -A. de Musset
  • Ministry- – -Let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier.- – -Mother Teresa
  • Miracles- – -There are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.- – -Albert Einstein
  • Mistakes- – -If it’s a mistake of the head and not of the heart, don’t worry about it. That’s the way we learn.- – -Earl Warren
  • Money- – -Money is a singular thing. It ranks with love as man’s greatest source of joy. And with death as his greatest source of anxiety.- – -John Kenneth Galbraith
  • Motivation – Ambition- – -All motivation is self-motivation. Your family, your boss or your co-workers can try to get your engine going, but until you decide what to accomplish, nothing will happen.- – -Seth Godin in Wisdom, Inc. (HarperCollins)
  • Opportunity- – -A window of opportunity will not open itself.- – -Michael Crichton
  • Parenting – Children – Growth- – -It’s not only children who grow. Parents do too. As much as we watch to see what our children do with their lives, they are watching us to see what we do with ours. I can’t tell my children to reach for the sun. All I can do is reach for it myself.- – -Joyce Maynard in At Home in the World (Picador)
  • Patience- – -Patience is the ability to idle your motor when you feel like stripping your gears.- – -Barbara Johnson
  • Patience – Worry- – -The bridges you cross before you come to them are over rivers that are not there.- – -Gene Brown
  • Pay – Reward- – -The highest reward for a person’s toil is not what they get for it, but what they become by- – -it.- – -John Ruskin
  • Peace – Power- – -Many people want peace without the aloneness of power.- – -M. Scott Peck in Meditations from the Road
  • Perfection – Creativity- – -Perfectionism is the enemy of creation, as extreme self-solitude is the enemy of well-being.- – -John Updike in Odd Jobs (Knoph)
  • Politics- – -The most important political office is that of private citizen.- – -Louis Brandeis
  • Positive – Negative- – -When one door closes, another opens. But we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we fail to see the one that has opened for us.- – -Alexander Graham Bell.
  • Positive – NegativeDid is a word of achievement, Won’t is a word of retreat. Might is a word of bereavement, Can’t is a word of defeat. Ought is a word of duty, Try is a word each hour. Will is a word of beauty, Can is a word of power.- – -Anonymous
  • Potential – Personality- – -Man’s main task in life is to give birth to himself, to become what he potentially is. The most important product of his effort is his own personality.- – -Erich Fromm
  • Procrastination- – -Procrastination means you know what you need to do and you don’t do it. If you don’t know what to do, you aren’t procrastinating. You are thinking.- – -Lynn Lively in The Procrastinator’s Guide to Success
  • Professionals – Amateurs- – -Amateurs compete to win over their competitors. Pros compete to win over themselves.- – -Gerhard Gschwandtner
  • Progress- – -No great step, private or public, has ever been undertaken in a bliss of certainty.- – -Leon Wiesltier in The New Republic
  • Public Office- – -When a man assumes a public trust, he should consider himself as public property.- – -Thomas Jefferson
  • Regret- – -Regret is an appalling waste of energy; you can’t build on it; it is good only for wallowing.- – -Katherine Mansfield
  • Responsibilty – Authority- – -Those who enjoy responsibility usually get it. Those who merely like exercising authority usually lose it.- – -Malcolm Forbes
  • Self-Pity- – -Lord, help me remember that I can never feel sorry for myself when I am busy loving.- – -Doris Haase
  • Sexuality – Roles- – -It doesn’t matter whether you are a man or a woman. What matters is your grasp of the problems and the need for action.- – -Margaret Thatcher
  • Silence – Apathy- – -Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.- – -Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr
  • Smile- – -A smile is the light in your window that tells others that there is a caring, sharing person inside.- – -Denis Waitley
  • Spirit – Ego- – -The spirit is carefree, lighthearted, and full of laughter. The ego is serious, arrogant, and contentious. In one there is peace and harmony and love, in the other fear and hostility.- – -Deepak Chopra in The Return of Merlin
  • Strength – Gentleness- – -Nothing is so strong as gentleness, and nothing so gentle as real strength.- – -Ralph Stockman
  • Success- – -To laugh often and much; To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; To appreciate beauty; To find the best in others; To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; To know that even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.- – -Ralph Waldo Emerson
  • Suffering – Human Condition- – -A man stood before God and asked, “Look at all the suffering, the anguish and distress in your world. Why don’t you send help?” God responded, “I did send help. I sent you.”- – -David J. Wolpe
  • Talent- – -Talent is the gift plus passion — a desire to succeed so intense that no force on earth canstop it.- – -Neil Simon
  • Teamwork – Diversity- – -Teams begin with individuals. Respect for the different ways that different people process information is an excellent first step toward helping diverse personalities reach consensus.- – -Patrick Townsend in Quality in Action
  • Tears- – -The soul would have no rainbows had the eyes no tears.- – -John Vance Cherry
  • Time – Wasting Time- – -Loss of time through sociability, idle talk, luxury, even more sleep than necessary for health (six to at most eight hours), is worthy of absolute moral condemnation.- – -Max Weber
  • Timing – Words- – -The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause.- – -Mark Twain
  • Today- – -We don’t want tradition. We want to live in the present, and the only history that is worth a tinker’s damn is the history we make today. Henry Ford
  • Trials – Opportunities- – -Our trials are great opportunities, but all too often we simply see them as large obstacles.- – -L.B. Cowman in Streams in the Desert
  • Value – Success- – -Try not to become a man of success, but rather a man of value.- – -Albert Einstein
  • Wisdom- – -The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.- – -William James