Inspirational Quotes
The great and glorious masterpiece of man is to know how to live to purpose.
Faith can move mountains.
The doctor and the pastor ask about your health, but eternity makes you responsible for your condition.
Trust men and they will be true to you, treat them greatly, and they will show themselves great.
When the going gets tough the tough get going.
No one became poor by giving alms.
I am again fairly settled down to the pleasant duties of an old fashioned Virginia house-keeper, steady as a clock, busy as a bee, and as cheerful as a cricket.
Leadership is much more an art, a belief, a condition of the heart, than a set of things to do. The visible signs of artful leadership are expressed, ultimately, in its practice.
One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar.
Make the most of yourself, for that is all there is of you.
What really matters is what you do with what you have.
To know oneself is to study oneself in action with another person.
You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.
The Missouri is, perhaps, different in appearance and character from all other rivers in the world. There is a terror in its manner which is sensibly felt, the moment we enter its muddy waters from the Mississippi.
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act but a habit.
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.
I feel I have this great creative and spiritual force within me that is greater than faith, greater than ambition, greater than confidence, greater than determination, greater than vision. It is all these combined. Whether it is a godhead or not, I feel this great force, this untapped power, this dynamic something within me. This feeling defies description, and there is no experience with which this feeling may be compared. It is something like a strong emotion mixed with faith, but a lot stronger.
It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor.
Strength is life, weakness is death. Expansion is life, contraction is death. Love is life, hatred is death.
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.
Just smiling can do wonders for your attitude
Most people don't get much praise in daily life, but we all need it very much. I think receiving praise makes us brave. Down deep we really know our worth, but we don't have easy access to that knowledge. We need to hear praise coming from outside ourselves or we won't remember that we deserve it.
Optimism is essential to achievement and it is also the foundation of courage and true progress.
The best effect of fine persons is felt after we have left their presence.
When I exercise, I wear all black. Its like a funeral for my fat.
Be the change you want to see in the world.
An army of lions commanded by a deer will never be an army of lions.
I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor.
He who risks and fails can be forgiven. He who never risks and never fails is a failure in his whole being.
There is one quality which one must possess to win, and that is definiteness of purpose, the knowledge of what one wants, and a burning desire to possess it.
Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.
The show must go on.
There are two things to aim at in life , first to get what you want, and after that to enjoy it. Only the wisest of mankind has achieved the second.
Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see the shadow.
I don't measure a man's success by how high he climbs but how high he bounces when he hits bottom.
When defeat comes, accept it as a signal that your plans are not sound, rebuild those plans, and set sail once more toward your coveted goal.
Opportunities multiply as they are seized ; they die when neglected. Life is a long line of opportunities.
Whoever is open, loyal, true ; of humane and affable demeanour, honourable himself, and in his judgement of others, faithful to his word as to law, and faithful alike to God and man... .such a man is a true gentleman.
Not being able to do everything is no excuse for not doing everything you can.
There is no substitute for hard work.
The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance, the wise grows it under his feet.
Some people come into our lives and quickly go, some stay for a while and leave footprints in our hearts, and we are never, ever the same.
Happiness is not a station you arrive at, but a manner of traveling.
We don't stop playing because we grow old, we grow old because we stop playing.
Happiness itself does not stay -- only moments of happiness do.
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 follow where they lead.
You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.
Standing in the middle of the road is very dangerous, you get knocked down by the traffic from both sides.
Tomorrow will be like today. Life wastes itself while we are preparing to live. Our friends and fellow-workers die off from us.
No man can stand on top because he is put there.
An Arabian proverb says there are four sorts of men: He who knows not and knows not he knows not: he is a fool, shun him. He who knows not and knows he knows not: he is simple, teach him. He who knows and knows not he knows: he is asleep--wake him. He who knows and knows he knows: he is wise, follow him.
The harder you work, the harder it is to surrender.
Anyone can count the seeds in an apple, but only God can count the number of apples in a seed.
While we may not be able to control all that happens to us, we can control what happens inside us.
The significance of a man is not in what he attains but in what he longs to attain.
To wear your heart on your sleeve isn't a very good plan, you should wear it inside, where it functions best.
Friends are angels who lift us to our feet when our wings have trouble remembering how to fly.
It is far more impressive when others discover your good qualities without your help.
The daily grind of hard work gets a person polished.
Joy is the feeling of grinning inside.
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.
The empires of the future are the empires of the mind.
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.
Persistence is to the character of man as carbon is to steel.
Obstacles don't have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don't turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it.
Where there is love there is no darkness.
What the world wants is character. The world is in need of those whose life is one burning love, selfless. That love will make every word tell like a thunderbolt.
Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment.
Mistakes are painful when they happen, but years later a collection of mistakes is what is called experience.
My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness.
I am the captain of my soul.
We are so lazy, we do not want to do anything ourselves. We want a personal god, a savior or a prophet to do everything for us. Long as we believe ourselves to be even the least different from god, fear remains with us, but when we know ourselves to be the one, fear goes, of what can we be afraid ?
If you face a delicate situation, don't go into it wearing your spurs or you'll rip it apart. Instead, dress for the occasion. Cloak yourself in diplomacy. Vest yourself with wisdom, and wear a smile.
Never try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time, and it annoys the pig
The several tribes of indians inhabiting the regions of the upper missouri, and of whom I spoke in my last letter, are undoubtedly the finest looking, best equipped, and most beautifully costumed of any on the continent.
Where there is no wealth there is no poverty.
Character is higher than intellect... A great soul will be strong to live, as well as to think.
I couldn't wait for success, so I went ahead without it.
Man shapes himself through decisions that shape his environment.
It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you'll do things differently.
It not knowing what to do, it's doing what you know.
No one can make you jealous, angry, vengeful, or greedy -- unless you let him.
Live with passion.
Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.
The best job goes to the person who can get it done without passing the buck or coming back with excuses.
Adversity is wont to reveal genius, prosperity to hide it.
Work like you don't need the money. Love like you've never been hurt. Dance like nobody is watching.
Above all, beware of compromises. Hold on to your own principles in weal or woe and never adjust them to others fads through the greed of getting supporters. Your atman is the support of the universe - whose support do you stand in need of ?
If we don't change, we don't grow. If we don't grow, we aren't really living.
Take advantage of every opportunity to practice your communication skills so that when important occasions arise, you will have the gift, the style, the sharpness, the clarity, and the emotions to affect other people.
The difference between the impossible and the possible lies in a persons determination.
I think there is something, more important than believing : Action ! The world is full of dreamers, there aren't enough who will move ahead and begin to take concrete steps to actualize their vision.