
“First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do.”
Book III, ch. 23.
Discourses
First Week, Third Day.
La Semaine; ou, Création du monde (1578)
“First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do.”
Book III, ch. 23.
Discourses
“Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.”
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
“You cannot change what you are, only what you do.”
Source: His Dark Materials, The Golden Compass (1995), Ch. 18 : Fog and Ice
As reported by Quoteinvestigator on January 11, 2011 http://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/01/11/what-lies-within/ the quote appeared in “Meditations in Wall Street” (1940) by Wall Street trader Henry Stanley Haskins, "a Wall Street trader with a checkered background. The phrase was misattributed because the true author's name was initially withheld. In addition, the assignment of the maxim to a more prestigious individual, e.g., Emerson or Thoreau, made it more attractive and more believable as a nugget of wisdom." Emerson made a number of similar statements — in "The American Scholar," for example, he says "Give me insight into to-day, and you may have the antique and future worlds" — which probably increased the likelihood of misattribution.
Misattributed
Variant: What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.
Variant: What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.
“Success is getting what you want..
Happiness is wanting what you get.”
Variant: Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get.
“What they call you is one thing. What you answer to is something else.”
“Do what you have to do, to do what you want to do.”
Variant: Do what you gotta do so you can do what you wanna do.
“Success is getting what you want; happiness is wanting what you get.”