“Life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it.”
“Fight for the things that you care about, but do it in a way that will lead others to join you.”
Statement of advice on being presented the Radcliffe Medal, as quoted in "Honoring Ruth Bader Ginsburg" by Colleen Walsh, in The Harvard Gazette (29 May 2015) https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2015/05/honoring-ruth-bader-ginsburg/
2010s
“Courage is being scared to death, but saddling up anyway.”
“Because I loved myself, I was loved.”
Becoming Light: Poems New and Selected (1991)
“When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.”
“Always remember that you are absolutely unique. Just like everyone else.”
Variant: Always remember that you are absolutely unique. Just like everyone else.
“You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.”
Often attributed to Churchill, this thought was originally expressed by the French author Victor Hugo in Villemain (1845), as follows: You have enemies? Why, it is the story of every man who has done a great deed or created a new idea. It is the cloud which thunders around everything that shines. Fame must have enemies, as light must have gnats. Do not bother yourself about it; disdain. Keep your mind serene as you keep your life clear.
Villemain is a brief segment taken from Hugo’s Choses Vues (Things Seen), a running journal Hugo kept of events he witnessed. The original French versions of these journals were published after Hugo's death.
Misattributed
“You will never find time for anything. If you want time, you must make it.”
Source: Notes of Thought (1883), p. 158
“If there is a good will, there is great way.”
“Behind every successful man is a woman, behind her is his wife.”
“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 us today. It will be you tomorrow.”
Statement after his speech before the League of Nations (30 June 1936), as quoted in " "The Lion is Freed" in TIME magazine (8 September 1975) http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,917777,00.html?iid=chix-sphere
" The Problem of Increasing Human Energy http://www.tfcbooks.com/tesla/1900-06-00.htm", Century Illustrated Magazine (June 1900)
“Everything will be okay in the end. If it's not okay, it's not the end.”
Also found with the alternative spelling: Everything is okay in the end. If it's not okay, it's not the end
Found anonymously on Usenet in 2000 https://groups.google.com/forum/message/raw?msg=alt.support.divorce/gKiyfcAYreo/jjuc6KTu_NAJ. First known attribution to Lennon is from 2011 https://groups.google.com/forum/message/raw?msg=stow-ma-apple-barn/45MNk9KiGsY/vaq6pr8hgI0J.
Disputed
Variant: Everything is OK in the end. If it's not OK, it's not the end.
“A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life.”
volume I, chapter VI: "The Voyage", page 266 http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=284&itemID=F1452.1&viewtype=image; letter to sister Susan Elizabeth Darwin (4 August 1836)
The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin (1887)
Source: The Life & Letters of Charles Darwin
“Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence wins championships.”
Source: Jordan, Michael. I Can't Accept Not Trying : Michael Jordan on the Pursuit of Excellence. San Francisco, CA: HarperSanFrancisco, 1994. p. 129
Context: I can accept failure. Everyone fails at something. But I can't accept not trying [no hard work].
Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence wins championships. (p. 20, 24)
