If faith in ourselves had been more extensively taught and practiced, I am sure a very large portion of the evils and miseries that we have would have vanished. Duty is to encourage everyone in his struggle to live up to his own highest idea, and strive at the same time to make the ideal as near as possible to the truth.
Where there is love there is no darkness.
Throughout the centuries there have been men who took the first steps down new roads armed with nothing but their own vision.
You're on the road to success when you realize that failure is only a detour.
I deal with the obvious. I present, reiterate and glorify the obvious -- because the obvious is what people need to be told.
The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead. His eyes are closed.
The majority of men meet with failure because of their lack of persistence in creating new plans to take the place of those which fail.
Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.
An army of a thousand is easy to find, but, ah, how difficult to find a general.
Sweet are the uses of adversity, Which like the toad, ugly and venomous, Wears yet a precious jewel in his head.
The way to find out about your happiness is to keep your mind on those moments when you feel most happy, when you really are happy -- not excited, not just thrilled, but deeply happy. This requires a little bit of self-analysis. What is it that makes you happy ? Stay with it, no matter what people tell you. This is what I call 'following your bliss'. If you follow your bliss, you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. Wherever you are -- if you are following your bliss, you are enjoying that refreshment, that life within you, all the time.
The great end of life is not knowledge but action.
We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us really happy is something to be enthusiastic about.
Wisdom is more precious than rubies.
Little minds are tamed and subdued by misfortune, but great minds rise above them.
Are you fit company for the person you wish to become ?
A wise man makes his own decisions , an ignorant man follows the public opinion.
Indecision is the seedling of fear.
Problems are not stop signs, they are guidelines.
Nothing is so strong as gentleness, and nothing is so gentle as true strength.
Nothing could be worse than the fear that one had given up too soon, and left one unexpended effort that might have saved the world.
Patience and the mulberry leaf becomes a silk gown.
No, this trick won't work... How on earth are you ever going to explain in terms of chemistry and physics so important a biological phenomenon as first love ?
Keep in mind that you are always saying "no" to something. If it isn't to the apparent, urgent things in your life, it is probably to the most fundamental, highly important things. Even when the urgent is good, the good can keep you from your best, keep you from your unique contribution, if you let it.
A gentle hand may lead even an elephant by a single hair.
Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment.
Great spirits have often encountered violent opposition from weak minds.
Trust men and they will be true to you, treat them greatly, and they will show themselves great.
Don't be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.
All successful people men and women are big dreamers. They imagine what their future could be, ideal in every respect, and then they work every day toward their distant vision, that goal or purpose.
You have enemies ? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life.
One mistake will never kill you. The same mistake over and over again will.
Whatever you are be a good one.
Tell everyone what you want to do and someone will want to help you do it.
Volunteering is not a choice, it's a responsibility.
Even when change is elective, it will disorient you. You may go through anxiety. You will miss aspects of your former life. It doesn't matter. The trick is to know in advance of making any big change that you're going to be thrown off your feet by it. So you prepare for this inevitable disorientation and steady yourself to get through it. Then you take the challenge, make the change, and achieve your dream.
Life's most soothing things are a child's goodnight and sweet music.
We shall draw from the heart of suffering itself the means of inspiration and survival.
One cannot think crooked and walk straight.
Believe, when you are most unhappy, that there is something for you to do in the world. So long as you can sweeten another's pain, life is not in vain.
You will come to know that what appears today to be a sacrifice will prove instead to be the greatest investment that you will ever make.
The significance of a man is not in what he attains but in what he longs to attain.
What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say.
Victory belongs to the most persevering.
Your world is a living expression of how you are using and have used your mind
The fire that warms us can also consume us, it is not the fault of the fire.
If you don't like something, change it , if you can't change it, change the way you think about it.
To freely bloom - that is my definition of success.
There is no way to happiness, happiness is the way.
The most interesting thing about a postage stamp is the persistence with which it sticks to its job.
As long as we are persistence in our pursuit of our deepest destiny, we will continue to grow. We can not choose the day or time when we will fully bloom. It happens in its own time.
Kindness is more important than wisdom, and the recognition of this is the beginning of wisdom.
An insincere and evil friend is more to be feared than a wild beast, a wild beast may wound your body, but an evil friend will wound your mind.
No man ever became great without many and great mistakes.
You don't get to choose how you're going to die, only how you're going to live.
The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.
The only way to discover the limits of the possible is to go beyond them into the impossible.
It's not whether you get knocked down, it's whether you get back up.
The intelligent man is one who has successfully fulfilled many accomplishments, and is still willing to learn more.
You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you do not try.
Lives of great men all remind us we can make our lives sublime, and, departing, leave behind us footprints in the sands of time.
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 even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded
Life is not accountable to us. We are accountable to life.
You will do foolish things, but do them with enthusiasm.
The secret of success is learning how to use pain and pleasure instead of having pain and pleasure use you. If you do that, you're in control of your life. If you don't, life controls you.
The empires of the future are the empires of the mind.
Leadership does not always wear the harness of compromise.
If you want to get somewhere you have to know where you want to go and how to get there. Then never, never, never give up.
Be not afraid of growing slowly, be afraid only of standing still.
What nature delivers to us is never stale. Because what nature creates has eternity in it.
The wisest mind has something yet to learn.
It is of practical value to learn to like yourself. Since you must spend so much time with yourself you might as well get some satisfaction out of the relationship.
Nature never deceives us, it is we who deceive ourselves.
No man can succeed in a line of endeavor which he does not like.
I do not think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday.
Nothing is more validating and affirming than feeling understood. And the moment a person begins feeling understood, that person becomes far more open to influence and change.
The rays of happiness, like those of light, are colorless when unbroken.
You are what you repeatedly do. Excellence is not an event - it is a habit.
Hope is a state of mind, not of the world. Hope, in this deep and powerful sense, is not the same as joy that things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously heading for success, but rather an ability to work for something because it is good.
Feelings of worth can flourish only in an atmosphere where individual differences are appreciated, mistakes are tolerated, communication is open, and rules are flexible - the kind of atmosphere that is found in a nurturing family.
What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.
Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances.
Take time to deliberate, but when the time for action has arrived, stop thinking and go in.
You can have anything you want ? if you want it badly enough. You can be anything you want to be, do anything you set out to accomplish if you hold to that desire with singleness of purpose.
Skill and confidence are an unconquered army.
Difficulties strengthen the mind, as well as labor does the body.
A child becomes an adult when he realizes that he has a right not only to be right but also to be wrong.
Things do not change we change.
Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must first be overcome.
Hunker down.
The happiness of life is made up of minute fractionsthe little soon-forgotten charities of a kiss, a smile, a kind look, a heartfelt compliment in the disguise of a playful raillery, and the countless other infinitesimals of pleasurable thought and genial feeling.
Being defeated is often a temporary condition. Giving up is what makes it permanent.