Quotes about motivation and change

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“I don't believe in God, but I have this idea that if there were a God, or destiny of some kind looking down on us, that if he saw you taking anything for granted he’d take it away. So he'll be like: 'You think this is going pretty well?”

Hugh Laurie (1959) British actor, comedian, writer, musician and director

Then he'll go and send down some big disaster.
Stargazing: Heather's Angry, Jane is Ill, Hugh is Anxious Kansas City Star, Wed, Oct. 31, 2007

“Your life does not get better by chance, it gets better by change.”

Jim Rohn (1930–2009) American motivational speaker

“It is never too late to be what you might have been.”

George Eliot (1819–1880) English novelist, journalist and translator

“Don’t be afraid of hard work. Nothing worthwhile comes easily. Don’t let others discourage you or tell you that you can’t do it. In my day I was told women didn’t go into chemistry. I saw no reason why we couldn’t.”

Gertrude B. Elion (1918–1999) American biochemist and pharmacologist

Gertrude Elion https://www.famousscientists.org/gertrude-b-elion/

“Energy cannot be created or destroyed, it can only be changed from one form to another.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

“I've seen hate change many things for the worse. I've seen love change everything for the good.”

George Jones (1931–2013) American musician, singer and songwriter

Source: I Lived to Tell It All (1996, ebook 2014), Page 205.

“Every book is the wreck of a perfect idea.”

Iris Murdoch (1919–1999) British writer and philosopher

“And in the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

This quote is often misattributed to Lincoln. The earliest instance that Quote Investigator could locate was "in an advertisement in 1947 for a book about aging by Edward J. Stieglitz, M.D". The advertisement for “The Second Forty Years” which ran in the Chicago Tribune newspaper read like this: The important thing to you is not how many years in your life, but how much life in your years! (Compare 1947 March 16, Chicago Tribune, “How Long Do You Plan to Live?”, [Advertisement for the book "The Second Forty Years" by Edward J. Stieglitz, M.D.], p. C7, Chicago, Illinois. (ProQuest)). Source of misattribution: It’s Not the Years in Your Life That Count. It’s the Life in Your Years - Abraham Lincoln? Adlai Stevenson? Edward J. Stieglitz? Anonymous? by Quote Investigator on July 14, 2012 http://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/07/14/life-years-count/ To my way of thinking it is not the years in your life but the life in your years that count in the long run. Adlai Stevenson II, Address at Princeton University, "The Educated Citizen" (22 March 1954) http://infoshare1.princeton.edu/libraries/firestone/rbsc/mudd/online_ex/stevenson/adlai1954.html. This has also been paraphrased "What matters most is not the years in your life, but the life in your years" and misattributed to Abraham Lincoln and Mae West. Adlai Stevenson II, "If I Were Twenty-One" in Coronet (December 1955). Misattributed Variant: It is not the years in your life but the life in your years that counts.

“The real strong have no need to prove it to the phonies.”

Charles Manson (1934–2017) American criminal and musician

“Progress? There's no such thing as progress. There's only change. You dig a hole in the ground, you build up a city, and you fight a war, and you call it progress?”

Charles Manson (1934–2017) American criminal and musician

Interview track from Charles Manson Sings (2006)

“I believe that everything happens for a reason. People change so that you can learn to let go, things go wrong so that you appreciate them when they're right, you believe lies so you eventually learn to trust no one but yourself, and sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together.”

Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962) American actress, model, and singer

“Keep smiling, because life is a beautiful thing and there's so much to smile about.”

Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962) American actress, model, and singer

“Healthy relationships should always begin at the spiritual and intellectual levels - the levels of purpose, motivation, interests, dreams, and personality.”

Myles Munroe (1954–2014) Bahamian Evangelical Christian minister

Source: Waiting and Dating

“Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

Source: Meditations

“Fortune does not change men, it unmasks them.”

Suzanne Curchod (1737–1794) French-Swiss salonist and writer

Reported in "The Viking Book of Aphorisms: A Personal Selection" By Wystan Hugh Auden, Louis Kronenberger (1981)

“A lot of people said to me that they were able to feel courage or happiness, for instance, when they see my performance. So, I believe that this is my motivation for skating, and that this gives me the reason to go on until the end.”

Yuzuru Hanyu (1994) Japanese figure skater (1994-)

CBC interview with Scott Russell
Original: (ja) いろんな方々が僕の演技を見た時に勇気を感じたとか、何か幸せになったとか、そういったことを言ってくれて、それが自分にとってのスケートのモチベーションだと思ってますし、それが僕が今スケートを最後までやり通す意味になってるなって思います。