
“I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become.”
Variant: I am not what happens to me. I choose who I become.
A collection of quotes on the topic of motivational, attitude, inspirational, success.
“I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become.”
Variant: I am not what happens to me. I choose who I become.
“No one is perfect in this imperfect world.”
Congo, My Country
“If you want the rainbow, you have to put up with the rain.”
Variant: The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain!
“Life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it.”
“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”
“Thinking is difficult, that’s why most people judge.”
“Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.”
Attributed on the internet but not found in print prior to an attribution in Aero Digest, Vols. 58–59, 1949, p. 115 https://books.google.com/books?id=q2ofAQAAMAAJ&dq=%22Life+is+simple%22+but+we+insist+on+making+it+complicated&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=%22Life+is+simple%22+
Misattributed, Not Chinese
'Where Do We Go From Here?" as published in Where Do We Go from Here : Chaos or Community? (1967), p. 62; many statements in this book, or slight variants of them, were also part of his address Where Do We Go From Here?" which has a section below. A common variant appearing at least as early as 1968 has "Returning violence for violence multiplies violence..." An early version of the speech as published in A Martin Luther King Treasury (1964), p. 173, has : "Returning hate for hate multiplies hate..."
1960s
Source: A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches
Context: The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. So it goes. … Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.
“It’s better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.”
Variant: Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius and it's better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.
As quoted in Journal of France and Germany (1942–1944) by Gilbert Fowler White, in excerpt published in Living with Nature's Extremes: The Life of Gilbert Fowler White (2006) by Robert E. Hinshaw, p. 62. From the context http://books.google.com/books?id=_2qfZRp9SeEC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA62#v=onepage&q&f=false it seems that White did not specify whether he had heard Einstein himself say this or whether he was repeating a quote that had been passed along by someone else, so without a primary source the validity of this quote should be considered questionable.
Some have argued that elsewhere Einstein defined a "miracle" as a type of event he did not believe was possible—Einstein on Religion by Max Jammer (1999) quotes on p. 89 from a 1931 conversation Einstein had with David Reichinstein, where Reichinstein brought up philosopher Arthur Liebert's argument that the indeterminism of quantum mechanics might allow for the possibility of miracles, and Einstein replied that Liebert's argument dealt "with a domain in which lawful rationality [determinism] does not exist. A 'miracle,' however, is an exception from lawfulness; hence, there where lawfulness does not exist, also its exception, i.e., a miracle, cannot exist." ("Dort, wo eine Gesetzmässigkeit nicht vorhanden ist, kann auch ihre Ausnahme, d.h. ein Wunder, nicht existieren." D. Reichenstein, Die Religion der Gebildeten (1941), p. 21). However, it is clear from the context that Einstein was stating only that miracles cannot exist in a domain (quantum mechanics) where lawful rationality does not exist. He did not claim that miracles could never exist in any domain. Indeed, Einstein clearly believed, as seen in many quotations above, that the universe was comprehensible and rational, but he also described this characteristic of the universe as a "miracle". In another example, he is quoted as claiming belief in a God, "Who reveals Himself in the lawful harmony of the world."
As quoted in From Yale to Jail: The Life Story of a Moral Dissenter (1993) by David T. Dellinger, p. 418
Disputed
Variant: There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.
Variant: There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.
“Some people want it to happen, some wish it would happen, others make it happen.”
Variant: Some people want it to happen, some wish it would happen, and others make it happen.
“When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”
“Do not pray for an easy life, pray for the strength to endure a difficult one”
“If it's not important for you, then it's not important for me.”
2021
“Small opportunities are often the beginning of great enterprises.”
“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”
Lord Darlington, Act III
Source: Lady Windermere's Fan (1892)
“Never allow someone to be your priority while allowing yourself to be their option.”
“No-one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”
Attributed quotes
“Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting!”
Variant: Today is your day, your mountain is waiting. So get on your way.
Foreword (January 1960)
You Learn by Living (1960)
“Every day may not be good…
but there's something good in every day”
“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.”
Source: Man's Search for Meaning
“We may encounter many defeats but we must not be defeated.”
“We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.”
“When life gives you lemons, make lemonade”
Variant: When fate hands you lemons, make lemonade.
“Morality is simply the attitude we adopt towards people we personally dislike.”
Source: An Ideal Husband
“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”
Attributed to Winston Churchill in The Prodigal Project : Book I : Genesis (2003) by Ken Abraham and Daniel Hart, p. 224 and other places, though no source attribution is given. It actually derives from an advertising campaign for Budweiser beer in the late 1930s.
Misattributed
Variant: Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.
Source: http://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/09/03/success-final/
“Keep your face always toward the sunshine – and shadows will fall behind you.”
This has become attributed to both Walt Whitman and Helen Keller, but has not been found in either of their published works, and variations of the quote are listed as a proverb commonly used in both the US and Canada in A Dictionary of American Proverbs (1992), edited by Wolfgang Mieder, Kelsie B. Harder and Stewart A. Kingsbury.
Misattributed
“If there is a good will, there is great way.”
“Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve.”
Actually said by Napoleon Hill, Stone later added the line "...with P.M.A." (Positive Mental Attitude) to the end of this quote.
Misattributed
Variant: Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve.
“Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men.”
“If you look the right way, you can see that the whole world is a garden.”
Source: The Secret Garden
“[Change is] the only evidence of life.”
Source: Brideshead Revisited: The Sacred and Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder
“Change the way you look at things and the things you look at change.”
“It's not the size of the dog in the fight; it's the size of the fight in the dog.”
Anonymous American proverb; since 1998 this has often been attributed to Mark Twain on the internet, but no contemporary evidence of him ever using it has been located.
Variants:
It is not the size of the dog in the fight that counts, but the fight in the dog that matters.
"Stub Ends of Thoughts" by Arthur G. Lewis, a collection of sayings, in Book of the Royal Blue Vol. 14, No. 7 (April 1911), cited as the earliest known occurrence in The Dictionary of Modern Proverbs, edited by Charles Clay Doyle, Wolfgang Mieder, and Fred R. Shapiro, p. 232
It is not the size of the dog in the fight that counts, but the fight in the dog that wins.
Anonymous quote in the evening edition of the East Oregonian (20 April 1911)
What counts is not necessarily the size of the dog in the fight — it's the size of the fight in the dog.
Dwight D. Eisenhower, declaring his particular variant on the proverbial assertion in Remarks at Republican National Committee Breakfast (31 January 1958) http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=11229
Misattributed
“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”
Disputed
Variant: No one can make you feel inferior without your permission.
Source: Sometimes claimed to appear in her book This is My Story, but in The Quote Verifier by Ralph Keyes (2006), Keyes writes on p. 97 that "Bartlett's and other sources say her famous quotation can be found in This is My Story, Roosevelt's 1937 autobiography. It can't. Quotographer Rosalie Maggio scoured that book and many others by and about Roosevelt in search of this line, without success. In their own extensive searching, archivists at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library in Hyde Park, New York, have not been able to find the quotation in This Is My Story or any other writing by the First Lady. A discussion of some of the earliest known attributions of this quote to Roosevelt, which may be a paraphrase from an interview, can be found in this entry from Quote Investigator http://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/03/30/not-inferior/.
“You can often change your circumstances by changing your attitude”
“The price of greatness is responsibility.”
In the House of Commons, February 28, 1906 speech South African native races http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1906/feb/28/south-african-native-races#S4V0152P0_19060228_HOC_307
The Second World War (1939–1945)
Variant: Where there is great power there is great responsibility
Context: I submit respectfully to the House as a general principle that our responsibility in this matter is directly proportionate to our power. Where there is great power there is great responsibility, where there is less power there is less responsibility, and where there is no power there can, I think, be no responsibility.
“I can resist everything except temptation.”
Lord Darlington, Act I
Variant: I can resist everything except temptation
Source: Lady Windermere's Fan (1892)
“I am not a product of my circumstances. I am a product of my decisions.”
“A quiet conscience makes one strong!”
The Diary of a Young Girl
Remarks at Republican National Committee Breakfast (31 January 1958) http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=11229; Eisenhower hear delivers his particular variation of a pre-existing proverb, which has since become widely dispersed as simply "It's not the size of the dog in the fight; it's the size of the fight in the dog." In that form it has become widely attributed to Mark Twain on the internet, as early as 1998, but no contemporary evidence of Twain ever using it has been located. The earliest known variants of it occur in 1911, one in a collection of sayings "Stub Ends of Thoughts" by Arthur G. Lewis, in Book of the Royal Blue Vol. 14, No. 7 (April 1911): "It is not the size of the dog in the fight that counts, but the fight in the dog that matters", as cited in The Dictionary of Modern Proverbs, edited by Charles Clay Doyle, Wolfgang Mieder, and Fred R. Shapiro, p. 232, and the other as "It is not the size of the dog in the fight that counts, but the fight in the dog that wins" in the evening edition of the East Oregonian (20 April 1911) http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/2015-October/139250.html
1950s
“I was not, I lived and loved, I am not.”
A Fish Dinner in Memison (1941)
Context: The black arrowed swoop of the moment swung high into the unceilinged future, ten, fifty, sixty years, may be: then, past seeing, up to that warmthless unconsidered mock-time, when nothing shall be left but the memorial that fits all (except, if there be, the most unhappiest) of human kind: I was not, I lived and loved, I am not.
“It is nice to be important, but it's more important to be nice. ”
“Be Yourself. Everyone Else Is Already Taken.”
Anonymous advertising copywriter for Menards chain of hardware stores (2000), according to Quote Investigator http://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/01/20/be-yourself
Misattributed
Letter to Isham Reavis (5 November 1855)
1850s
Context: If you are resolutely determined to make a lawyer of yourself, the thing is more than half done already. It is but a small matter whether you read with anyone or not. I did not read with anyone. Get the books, and read and study them till you understand them in their principal features; and that is the main thing. It is of no consequence to be in a large town while you are reading. I read at New Salem, which never had three hundred people living in it. The books, and your capacity for understanding them, are just the same in all places.... Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed, is more important than any other one thing.
“There are no limitations to the mind except those that we acknowledge.”
Source: Think and Grow Rich
“Life is to be lived, not controlled.”
“Ah, pay no heed if your enemies laugh. They'll not be able to once you lop off their heads.”
Source: Eragon, Eldest & Brisingr
“Action springs not from thought, but from a readiness for responsibility.”
“My father gave me the greatest gift anyone could give another person, he believed in me.”
“Think big thoughts but relish small pleasures.”
Source: Life's Little Instruction Book
“Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe it can achieve.”
p.32 -->
Variant: Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve.
Source: Think and Grow Rich: A Black Choice
“As you were, I was. As I am, you will be.”
Source: Hell's Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga
“Attitude, not Aptitude, determines Altitude.”
Variant: Your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your altitude.
“To be a great champion you must believe you are the best. If you’re not, pretend you are.”
“Nurture your mind with great thoughts, for you will never go any higher than you think.”
“A discriminating irreverence is the creator and protector of human liberty.”
“Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius”
“If you want to change attitudes, start with a change in behavior.”
“A quick temper will make a fool of you soon enough.”
“The world's most deadly disease is "hardening of the attitudes."”
As quoted in Secrets of Superstar Speakers: Wisdom from the Greatest Motivators of Our Time (2000) by Lilly Walters, p. 96
“That's not my love; that's just your life.”
Ibid.
The Book of Disquiet
Original: Isso não é o meu amor; é apenas a sua vida.
Source: Striking Thoughts (2000), p. 120
“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”
Introduction (1966)
Sometimes misquoted as: Be careful what you pretend to be because you are what you pretend to be.
Mother Night (1961)
“We see the world not as it is, but as we are.”
Dag Redwing hickory Bluefield
Passage (Vol. III in Tetralogy) (2008), p. 163
The Sharing Knife, Passage (Vol. III in Tetralogy) (2008)
“This is the revolution of the new generation.”
Source: The Greening of America (1970), Chapter I : The Coming American Revolution, p. 4
Context: There is a revolution coming. It will not be like revolutions of the past. It will originate with the individual and with culture, and it will change the political structure only as its final act. It will not require violence to succeed, and it cannot be successfully resisted by violence. It is now spreading with amazing rapidity, and already our laws, institutions and social structure are changing in consequence. It promises a higher reason, a more human community, and a new and liberated individual. Its ultimate creation will be a new and enduring wholeness and beauty — a renewed relationship of man to himself, to other men, to society, to nature, and to the land.
This is the revolution of the new generation.
“None of it is important or all of it is.”
Introduction
The Log from the Sea of Cortez (1951)
Context: "... Let us go," we said, "into the Sea of Cortez, realizing that we become forever a part of it; that our rubber boots slogging through a flat of eel-grass, that the rocks we turn over in a tide pool, make us truly and permanently a factor in the ecology of the region. We shall take something away from it, but we shall leave something too." And if we seem a small factor in a huge pattern, nevertheless it is of relative importance. We take a tiny colony of soft corals from a rock in a little water world. And that isn't terribly important to the tide pool. Fifty miles away the Japanese shrimp boats are dredging with overlapping scoops, bringing up tons of shrimps, rapidly destroying the species so that it may never come back, and with the species destroying the ecological balance of the whole region. That isn't very important in the world. And thousands of miles away the great bombs are falling and the stars are not moved thereby. None of it is important or all of it is.
“Every day may not be good… but there's something good in every day.”
“I am not, I will not be.
I have not, I will not have.”
That frightens all the childish
And extinguishes fear in the wise.
§ 26
Major attributed works, Ratnāvalī (Precious Garland)
“Positive thinking will let you do everything better than negative thinking will.”
“If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading.”
“The opportunity of your life, it's you.”
Original: (it) L'occasione della tua vita, sei tu.
Source: prevale.net
“Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character”
Speech made in honor of Thomas Mann in January 1939, when Mann was given the Einstein Prize given by the Jewish Forum. Quoted in Einstein Lived Here by Abraham Pais (1994), p. 214 http://books.google.com/books?id=u_9QAAAAMAAJ&q=%22becomes+lack+of+power%22#search_anchor
1930s
Context: The standard bearers have grown weak in the defense of their priceless heritage, and the powers of darkness have been strengthened thereby. Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character; it becomes lack of power to act with courage proportionate to danger. All this must lead to the destruction of our intellectual life unless the danger summons up strong personalities able to fill the lukewarm and discouraged with new strength and resolution.
Variant: It isn't what you have, or who you are, or where you are, or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It is what you think about.
Source: How to Win Friends and Influence People
“Your attitude, more than your aptitude, will determine your altitude.”
Failing Forward: How to Make the Most of Your Mistakes
“You cannot always control what goes on outside. But you can always control what goes on inside.”
“You see, when our attitudes outdistance our abilities, even the impossible becomes possible.”
Source: The Success Journey: The Process of Living Your Dreams
“To be or not to be. That's not really a question.”
“A day without sunshine is like, you know, night.”
“Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.”
Sententiæ: The Citizen and the State, p. 624
1940s–present, A Mencken Chrestomathy (1949)
Source: A Mencken Chrestomathy
“Your attitude determines your altitude.”
Zig Ziglar
200 Motivational and inspirational Quotes That Will Inspire Your Success
Variant: Your attitude determines your altitude. - Zig Ziglar
“Do for yourself, for no one else will.”
Source: A Heart So Wild
“People of little understanding are most apt to be angry when their sense is called into question.”
Variant: The secret of genius is to carry the spirit of the child into old age, which means never losing your enthusiasm.
“Respect yourself and others will respect you.”
Source: Sayings of Confucius
“Be positive, patient and persistent.”
“Forgiveness is not an occasional act, it is a constant attitude.”