Inspirational Quotes
Our life is what our thoughts make it.
Sometimes our light goes out but is blown into flame by another human being. Each of us owes deepest thanks to those who have rekindled this light.
The show must go on.
You don't use a hammer to tighten a screw.
Insist on yourself, never imitate. Every great man is unique.
If you command wisely, you'll be obeyed cheerfully.
If you believe you can, you probably can. If you believe you won't, you most assuredly won't. Belief is the ignition switch that gets you off the launching pad.
If you want children to keep their feet on the ground, put some responsibility on their shoulders.
I do not believe in styles anymore. I do not believe that there is such a thing as the Chinese way of fighting or the Japanese way of fighting, or any other way of fighting, because unless a human being has three arms and four legs, there can be no different form of fighting. To me, ultimately, martial art means honestly expressing yourself.
Challenges make you discover things about yourself that you never really knew. They're what make the instrument stretch-what make you go beyond the norm.
Look within, for within is the wellspring of virtue, which will not cease flowing, if you cease not from digging.
Life is no brief candle to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got a hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations
Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.
Nothing is more honorable than enlightenment, nothing is more beautiful than virtue.
Rough spots sharpen our performance. And more often than not, obstacles can be turned into advantages. You just can't let your disappointment get in the way.
If one has to submit, it is wasteful not to do so with the best grace possible.
Part of being a winner is knowing when enough is enough. Sometimes you have to give up the fight and walk away, and move on to something that's more productive.
Man's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions.
Always mistrust a subordinate who never finds fault with his superior.
If I'm ever on a life-support system I choose to be unplugged, but not until Im down to a size eight!
The purpose of life is not to be happy but to matter, to be productive, to be useful, to have it make some difference that you have lived at all.
When you face your fear, most of the time you will discover that it was not really such a big threat after all. We all need some form of deeply rooted, powerful motivation - it empowers us to overcome obstacles so we can live our dreams.
Only one thing has to change for us to know happiness in our lives : where we focus our attention.
I have learned to seek my happiness by limiting my desires, rather than attempting to satisfy them.
Never fear the want of business. A man who qualifies himself well for his calling, never fails of employment.
The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart.
All work is empty save when there is love.
I never worry about action, but only about inaction.
I have learned that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.
What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals.
The cherokee people are not "my people".
I always try to turn my personal struggles into something helpful for others.
What this power is I cannot say. All I know is that it exists and it becomes available only when a man is in that state of mind in which he knows exactly what he wants and is fully determined not to quit until he finds it.
Hide not your talents, they for use were made. What's a sundial in the shade ?
Life must be lived on a higher plane. We must go up to a higher platform, to which we are always invited to ascend, there, the whole aspect of things changes.
Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.
The heights by great men reached and kept were not obtained by sudden flight. But they, while their companions slept, were toiling upward in the night.
Sometimes things become possible if we want them bad enough.
You have not lived until you have done something for someone who can never repay you.
Admission of ignorance is often the first step in our education.
To find what you seek in the road of life, the best proverb of all is that which says Leave no stone unturned.
Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.
The principal goal of education is to create men who are capable of doing new things, not simply of repeating what other generations have done.
The measure of a man is the way he bears up under misfortune.
The dove is my emblem. I want to save and advance human life, not destroy it. I am proud of the fact that I never invented weapons to kill.
How far you go in life depends on you being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant of the weak and the strong. Because someday in life you will have been all of these.
Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
We don't live in a world of reality, we live in a world of perceptions.
You can do anything you put your mind to.
Hardening of the heart ages people faster than hardening of the arteries.
It doesn't matter how much milk you spill as long as you don't lose the cow.
Where there is love there is no darkness.
Happiness is not pleasure, it is victory.
I want to know God's thoughts ; the rest are details.
He who risks and fails can be forgiven. He who never risks and never fails is a failure in his whole being.
Be not ashamed of mistakes and thus make them crimes.
In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life - it goes on.
Be the best that you can be.
if one is unable to assert oneself, one is unable to participate in a genuine relationship.
Anonymity is your friend. Hmmm.. If someone adds an item to this list without knowing who "Larry" is... Is this still a list of Larryisms?
Live with passion.
Within us all there are wells of thought and dynamos of energy which are not suspected until emergencies arise. Then oftentimes we find that it is comparatively simple to double or treble our former capacities and to amaze ourselves by the results achieved. Quotas, when set up for us by others, are challenges which goad us on to surpass ourselves. The outstanding leaders of every age are those who set up their own quotas and constantly achieve them.
The United States, and other advanced nations, will someday be able to produce instruments of death so terrible the world will be in abject terror of itself and its ability to end civilization... . Such war-making weapons should be developed - but only for purposes of discovery and experimentation
The best way to find yourself, is to lose yourself in the service of others.
A goal properly set is halfway reached.
Why hesitate? Upon the plains of hesitation are the bleached bones of countless millions, who on the threshold of victory sat down to wait, and in waiting they died.
Education is one of the few things a person is willing to pay for and not get.
I love great music and art, but I think 'cubist' songs and paintings are hideous.
Some people enter our lives and leave almost instantly. Others stay, and forge such an impression on our heart and soul, we are changed forever.
Opportunity may knock only once, but temptation leans on the doorbell.
Happiness comes of the capacity to feel deeply, to enjoy simply, to think freely, to risk life, to be needed.
It is the surmounting of difficulties that make heroes.
Find the good -- and praise it.
The only good luck many great men ever had was being born with the ability and determination to overcome bad luck.
The aims and ideals that move us are generated by imagination. But they are not made out of imaginary stuff. They are made out of the hard stuff of the world of physical and social experience.
High expectations are the key to everything.
Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal, nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.
The miracle power that elevates the few is to be found in their industry, application and perseverance, under the promptings of a brave determined spirit.
Get busy living or get busy dying.
If I am not for myself, who will be for me ? Yet if I am for myself alone, of what good am I ?
Out of need springs desire, and out of desire springs the energy and the will to win.
Little minds are tamed and subdued by misfortune, but great minds rise above them.
Self delusion is pulling in your stomach when you step on the scales.
Whatever the mind of man creates, should be controlled by man's character.
No man is wise enough by himself.
Power is not really good or bad , it is neutral. Power itself is not negative or positive, although our feelings about it may be. Power is the potential to influence others for good or evil, to be a blessing or a scourge. Like nuclear energy, it can provide the electricity to light a city, or it can fuel the bomb that destroys it.
The toughest part of getting to the top of the ladder, is getting through the crowd at the bottom.
It is not length of life, but depth of life.
Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.
Action is the antidote to despair.
Learning is definitely not mere imitation or the ability to accumulate and conform to fixed knowledge. Learning is a constant process of discovery and never a concluding one. In JKD we begin not by accumulation but by discovering the cause of our ignorance, and oftentimes this involves a shedding process. Truth will not come until we have come to understand personally the whole process of the working of our being. After all, ultimately, knowledge in martial art simply means self-knowledge, and JKD can become intelligible only in the vigorous and constant process of self-inquiry and self-discovery.
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 that has been opened for us.