
“Let the beauty of what you love be what you do.”
As quoted in Path for Greatness : Spiritualty at Work (2000) by Linda J. Ferguson, p. 51
A collection of quotes on the topic of wise, deep, inspirational, motivational.
“Let the beauty of what you love be what you do.”
As quoted in Path for Greatness : Spiritualty at Work (2000) by Linda J. Ferguson, p. 51
“It is never too late to be what you might have been.”
“Believe you can and you're halfway there.”
“I would rather die on my feet than live on my knees.”
“Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow.”
“Do one thing every day that scares you.”
“Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.”
“The secret of getting ahead is getting started.”
“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
“If you don’t like the road you’re walking, start paving another one.”
“Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.”
Variant: A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.
'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.
“Be alone, that is the secret of invention; be alone, that is when ideas are born.”
“Action may not always bring happiness, but there is no happiness without action.”
“The secret to getting ahead is getting started.”
“Dead people receive more flowers than the living ones because regret is stronger than gratitude.”
First attibution is to Ralph Bergstresser who claims to have heard this from Tesla in a conversation "following an experience with the Maharaja's son".
Disputed
Source: Coments From The Inventor of the Purple Harmony Plates http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/ciencia/esp_ciencia_universalenergy02.htm,
“Sometimes you will never know the value of a moment until it becomes a memory.”
Georges Duhamel in THE HEART'S DOMAIN (1919). As it was composed in French, the wording in English may vary in translation. Theodore Geisel / Dr. Seuss was born in 1904, and would have been about 15 years old at the time that it was published. The full text can be found at the link below: We do not know the true value of our moments until they have undergone the test of memory. Like the images the photographer plunges into a golden bath, our sentiments take on color; and only then, after that recoil and that trans-figuration, do we understand their real meaning and enjoy them in all their tranquil splendor.
Misattributed
“Keep smiling, because life is a beautiful thing and there's so much to smile about.”
Variant: When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy’. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life.
“You can’t let your failures define you. You have to let your failures teach you.”
“Action may not always bring happiness but there is no happiness without action.”
Books, Coningsby (1844), Lothair (1870)
Variant: Action may not always bring happiness; but there is no happiness without action.
“Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.”
“Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle.”
“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.
“Life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it.”
“You must do the thing you think you cannot do.”
Source: You Learn by Living (1960), p. 29–30
Context: You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, "I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along." … You must do the thing you think you cannot do.
“It's easier to build strong children then repair broken men.”
Variant: It is easier to build strong men, than to repair broken ones.
Source: Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
“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.
“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.”
The Soul of Man Under Socialism (1891)
Context: With the abolition of private property, then, we shall have true, beautiful, healthy Individualism. Nobody will waste his life in accumulating things, and the symbols for things. One will live. To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.
“Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift. That's why it's called the present.”
This is actually a quotation http://books.google.com/books?id=FUIHmRHf8SUC&lpg=PA130&dq=%22not%20on%20fighting%20the%20old%20but%20on%20building%20the%20new%22&pg=PA130#v=onepage&q=%22not%20on%20fighting%20the%20old%20but%20on%20building%20the%20new%22&f=false from a character named Socrates in Way of the Peaceful Warrior: A Book that Changes Lives http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Way_of_the_Peaceful_Warrior, by Dan Millman.
Misattributed
“The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.”
As quoted in Our Precarious Habitat (1973) by Melvin A. Benarde, p. v
“Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it.”
Variant: Remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Never give up work. Work gives you meaning and purpose and life is empty without it. If you are lucky enough to find love, remember it is there and don't throw it away.
“Take your life in your own hands, and what happens? A terrible thing: no one to blame.”
“Live in the sunshine, swim the sea, drink the wild air.”
“The present is theirs; the future, for which I really worked, is mine.”
Shared on her Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/MayaAngelou/posts/10150251846629796, July 4, 2011
“The truth is, everyone is going to hurt you. You just got to find the ones worth suffering for.”
“Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood.”
As quoted in Our Precarious Habitat (1973) by Melvin A. Benarde, p. v
Context: Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.
“Owning our story and loving ourselves through that process is the bravest thing we’ll ever do.”
Variant: I now see how owning our story and loving ourselves through that process is the bravest thing that we will ever do.
Source: Rising Strong
“He who knows does not speak; he who speaks does not know.”
Variant: Those who know, do not speak, those who speak, do not know.
Source: Tao Te Ching, Ch. 56
“Try to be a rainbow in someone's cloud.”
Variant: Be a rainbow in somebody else's cloud.
Source: Letter to My Daughter
“Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it.”
“No tree, it is said, can grow to heaven unless its roots reach down to hell.”
“The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one.”
The Note Book of Elbert Hubbard (1927)
Variant: The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one.
“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving.”
Letter to his son Eduard (5 February 1930), as quoted in Walter Isaacson, Einstein: His Life and Universe (2007), p. 367
1930s
“A life without love is like a tree without fruit.”
Source: Doctor Sleep
“To be sane in a world of madman is in itself madness.”
“There are no regrets in life, just lessons.”
“You get in life what you have the courage to ask for.”
“When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.”
“One must be sane to think clearly, but one can think deeply and be quite insane.”
Variant: You can make more friends in two months by being interested in them, than in two years by making them interested in you.
Source: How to Win Friends and Influence People (1936), p. 52 (in 1998 edition)
“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”
Source: I Have a Dream: Writings and Speeches That Changed the World
“Never bend your head. Hold it high. Look the world straight in the eye.”
Variant: The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart.
Variant: The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen, nor touched... but are felt in the heart.
“You cannot swim for new horizons until you have courage to lose sight of the shore.”
“We must be willing to let go of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us.”
Variant: You must give up the life you planned in order to have the life that is waiting for you.
“Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.”
Variant: Always forgive your enemies — nothing annoys them so much.
“Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers.”
Il est encore plus facile de juger de l'esprit d'un homme par ses questions que par ses réponses. (It is easier to judge the mind of a man by his questions rather than his answers) — Pierre-Marc-Gaston, duc de Lévis (1764-1830), Maximes et réflexions sur différents sujets de morale et de politique (Paris, 1808): Maxim xviii
Misattributed
“No-one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”
Attributed quotes
“Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift. ”
“Life's not about waiting for the storm to pass… it's about learning to dance in the rain. ”
“Either you run the day, or the day runs you.”
“Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting!”
Variant: Today is your day, your mountain is waiting. So get on your way.
“Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.”
“Action is the foundational key to all success.”
“It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.”
Hawthorne and His Mosses (1850)
Context: It is better to fail in originality, than to succeed in imitation. He who has never failed somewhere, that man can not be great. Failure is the true test of greatness.
Context: It is better to fail in originality, than to succeed in imitation. He who has never failed somewhere, that man can not be great. Failure is the true test of greatness. And if it be said, that continual success is a proof that a man wisely knows his powers, — it is only to be added, that, in that case, he knows them to be small. Let us believe it, then, once for all, that there is no hope for us in these smooth pleasing writers that know their powers.
"Radio Power Will Revolutionize the World" in Modern Mechanics and Inventions (July 1934)
Context: The scientists from Franklin to Morse were clear thinkers and did not produce erroneous theories. The scientists of today think deeply instead of clearly. One must be sane to think clearly, but one can think deeply and be quite insane.
“All you need is the plan, the road map, and the courage to press on to your destination.”
“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”
Variant: Life can only be understood going backward, but must be lived going forward.
“Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.”
Ch. IX : Outdoors and Indoors, p. 336; the final statement "quoted by Squire Bill Widener" as well as variants of it, are often misattributed to Roosevelt himself.
Variant: Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
Attributed to Roosevelt in Conquering an Enemy Called Average (1996) by John L. Mason, Nugget # 8 : The Only Place to Start is Where You Are. <!-- The Military Quotation Book, Revised and Expanded: More than 1,200 of the Best Quotations About War, Leadership, Courage, Victory, and Defeat (2002) by James Charlton -->
Variant: Do what you can, with what you've got, where you are.
Context: There are many kinds of success in life worth having. It is exceedingly interesting and attractive to be a successful business man, or railroad man, or farmer, or a successful lawyer or doctor; or a writer, or a President, or a ranchman, or the colonel of a fighting regiment, or to kill grizzly bears and lions. But for unflagging interest and enjoyment, a household of children, if things go reasonably well, certainly makes all other forms of success and achievement lose their importance by comparison. It may be true that he travels farthest who travels alone; but the goal thus reached is not worth reaching. And as for a life deliberately devoted to pleasure as an end — why, the greatest happiness is the happiness that comes as a by-product of striving to do what must be done, even though sorrow is met in the doing. There is a bit of homely philosophy, quoted by Squire Bill Widener, of Widener's Valley, Virginia, which sums up one's duty in life: "Do what you can, with what you've got, where you are."
“We do not remember days, we remember moments.”
This Business of Living (1935-1950)
“Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.”
Quote attributed to Picasso in TIME, October 4, 1976, Modern Living: Ozmosis in Central Park http://quoteinvestigator.com/2015/03/07/child-art/ http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,918412,00.html
Disputed
Variant: All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.
Variant: The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.
Foreword (January 1960)
You Learn by Living (1960)
“It isn't where you came from; it's where you're going that counts.”
“I've failed over and over and over again in my life and that is why I succeed.”
“Strength does not come from winning.”
From a 1982 interview with Boston Globe journalist Marian Christy. Christy, Marian. "Winning according to Schwarzenegger." https://secure.pqarchiver.com/boston/doc/294151457.html Boston Globe: Boston, MA. 9 May 1982: p 51. Accessed 25 Jun 2016.
1980s
Context: Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strengths. When you go through hardships and decide not to surrender, that is strength. When you make an impasse passable, that is strength. But you must have ego, the kind of ego which makes you think of yourself in terms of superlatives. You must want to be the greatest. We are all starved for compliments. So we do things that get positive feedback.
“All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.”
Source: Journals of Ralph Waldo Emerson, with Annotations - 1841-1844
“The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”
Laozi in the Tao Te Ching, Chapter 64
Misattributed, Chinese
“Life is the flower for which love is the honey.”
“Creativity is intelligence having fun.”
Variant: You build on failure. You use it as a stepping sone. Close the door on the past. You don't try to forget the mistakes, but you don't dwell on it. You don't let it have any of your energy, or any of your time, or any of your space.
As quoted in Meditations for Women Who Do Too (1991) by Anne Wilson Schaef
“In order to succeed, your desire for success should be greater than your fear of failure.”
“Whoever is happy will make others happy.”
Source: The Diary of a Young Girl
“In order to write about life first you must live it.”