This is the beginning of a new day. You have been given this day to use as you will. You can waste it or use it for good. What you do today is important because you are exchanging a day of your life for it. When tomorrow comes, this day will be gone forever; in its place is something that you have left behind…let it be something good.
Love the earth and sun and animals, despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others… And your very flesh shall be a great poem.
There is no such thing in anyone’s life as an unimportant day.
Here is a test to find out whether your mission in life is complete. If you’re alive, it isn’t.
People travel to wonder at the height of the mountains, at the huge waves of the seas, at the long course of the rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motion of the stars, and yet they pass by themselves without wondering.
I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.
I will not die an unlived life. I will not live in fear of falling or catching fire. I choose to inhabit my days, to allow my living to open me, to make me less afraid, more accessible, to loosen my heart until it becomes a wing, a torch, a promise. I choose to risk my significance; to live so that which comes to me as seed goes to the next as blossom and that which comes to me as blossom, goes on as fruit.
When you were born, you cried and the world rejoiced. Live your life so that when you die, the world cries and you rejoice.
Every blade of grass has its angel that bends over it and whispers, ‘Grow, grow.’
The day will come when, after harnessing space, the winds, the tides and gravitation, we shall harness for God the energies of love. And on that day, for the second time in the history of the world, we shall have discovered fire.
You must be the change you wish to see in the world.
Be glad of life, because it gives you the chance to love and to work and to play and to look up at the stars.
If you cannot be a poet, be the poem.
To live content with small means; to seek elegance rather than luxury; and refinement rather than fashion; to be worthy, not respectable; and wealthy, not rich; to study hard, think quietly, talk gently, act frankly; to listen to stars and birds, to babes and sages, with open heart; to bear all cheerfully, do all bravely, await occasion, hurry never; in a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious grow up through the common. This is to be my symphony.
Don’t ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.
Normal day, let me be aware of the treasure you are. Let me learn from you, love you, bless you before you depart. Let me not pass you by in quest of some rare and perfect tomorrow. Let me hold you while I may, for it may not always be so. One day I shall dig my nails into the earth, or bury my face in the pillow, or stretch myself taut, or raise my hands to the sky and want, more than all the world, your return.
If you hear a voice within you say ‘you cannot paint,’ then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.
To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and to endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.
Let every man or woman here, if you never hear me again, remember this, that if you wish to be great at all, you must begin where you are and with what you are. He who would be great anywhere must first be great in his own Philadelphia.
Insist on yourself; never imitate. Your own gift you can present every moment with the cumulative force of a whole life’s cultivation; but of the adopted talent of another you have only an extemporaneous half possession… Do that which is assigned to you, and you cannot hope too much or dare too much.
There’ll be two dates on your tombstone and all your friends will read ’em. But all that’s gonna matter is that little dash between ’em…
Your work is to discover your world and then with all your heart give yourself to it.
Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The trouble-makers. The round heads in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules, and they have no respect for the status-quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify, or vilify them. But the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.
Guard well your spare moments. They are like uncut diamonds. Discard them and their value will never be known. Improve them and they will become the brightest gems in a useful life.
You are not here merely to make a living. You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand.
One hundred percent of the shots you don’t take don’t go in.
I find the great thing in this world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving: To reach the port of heaven, we must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it, but we must sail, and not drift, nor lie at anchor.
When you plant lettuce, if it does not grow well, you don’t blame the lettuce. You look for reasons it is not doing well. It may need fertilizer, or more water, or less sun. You never blame the lettuce. Yet if we have problems with our friends or family, we blame the other person. But if we know how to take care of them, they will grow well, like the lettuce. Blaming has no positive effect at all, nor does trying to persuade using reason and argument. That is my experience. No blame, no reasoning, no argument, just understanding. If you understand, and you show that you understand, you can love, and the situation will change.
Try not to become a man of success. Rather become a man of value.
You must do the thing you think you cannot do.
Keep me away from the wisdom which does not cry, the philosophy which does not laugh and the greatness which does not bow before children.
Don’t let the fear of the time it will take to accomplish something stand in the way of your doing it. The time will pass anyway; we might just as well put that passing time to the best possible use.
It is one of the most beautiful compensations of this life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.
All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence.
Finish every day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt have crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be cumbered with your old nonsense. This day is all that is good and fair. It is too dear, with its hopes and invitations, to waste a moment on yesterdays.
Sow a thought, and you reap an act; Sow an act, and you reap a habit; Sow a habit, and you reap a character; Sow a character, and you reap a destiny.
Use what talent you possess: the woods would be very silent if no birds sang except those that sang best.
Ideals are like stars; you will not succeed in touching them with your hands, but like the seafaring man on the desert of waters, you choose them as your guides, and following them, you reach your destiny.
If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven played music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.
If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.
The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude to me is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than success, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, gift, or skill. It will make or break a company…a church…a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past…we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the string we have, and that is our attitude. I am convinced that life is 10 percent what happens to me and 90 percent how I react to it. And so it is with you… we are in charge of our attitudes.
Man’s mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions.
Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart. Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens.
Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.
It takes as much stress to be a success as it does to be a failure.
The best way to predict your future is to create it.
Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.
One ship drives east and another drives west with the selfsame winds that blow. ‘Tis the set of sails and not the gales which tells us the way to go.
Whether you think you can or think you can’t — you are right.
In any moment of decision the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing.
Your talent is God’s gift to you. What you do with it is your gift back to God.
Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing in the world is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent…
Better to light one small candle than to curse the darkness.
Evil (ignorance) is like a shadow–it has no real substance of its own, it is simply a lack of light. You cannot cause a shadow to disappear by trying to fight it, stamp on it, by railing against it, or any other form of emotional or physical resistance. In order to cause a shadow to disappear, you must shine light on it.
If there is light in the soul, there will be beauty in the person. If there is beauty in the person, there will be harmony in the house. If there is harmony in the house,
there will be order in the nation. If there is order in the nation, there will be peace in the world.
Where there is no vision, the people perish.
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.
I will permit no man to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him.
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
Past the seeker as he prayed came the crippled and the beggar and the beaten. And seeing them…he cried, ‘Great God, how is it that a loving creator can see such things and yet do nothing about them?’…God said, ‘I did do something. I made you.’
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
There can be hope only for a society which acts as one big family, not as many separate ones.
There are only two ways of spreading light – to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.
You must be the change you wish to see in the world.
We are the music makers and we are the dreamers of dreams..
There will always be dreams grander or humbler than your own, but there will never be a dream exactly like your own… for you are unique and more wondrous than you know!
Dream as if you’ll live forever…live as if you’ll die today.
Dreams are renewable. No matter what our age or condition, there are still untapped possibilities within us and new beauty waiting to be born.
We grow great by dreams. All big men are dreamers. They see things in the soft haze of a spring day or in the red fire of a long winter’s evening. Some of us let these great dreams die, but others nourish and protect them; nurse them through bad days till they bring them to the sunshine and light which comes always to those who sincerely hope that their dreams will come true.
I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.
A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral.
Only as high as I reach can I grow, only as far as I seek can I go, only as deep as I look can I see, only as much as I dream can I be.
Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now.
The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.
Some men see things as they are and ask why. Others dream things that never were and ask why not.
All men and women are born, live suffer and die; what distinguishes us one from another is our dreams, whether they be dreams about worldly or unworldly things, and what we do to make them come about… We do not choose to be born. We do not choose our parents. We do not choose our historical epoch, the country of our birth, or the immediate circumstances of our upbringing. We do not, most of us, choose to die; nor do we choose the time and conditions of our death. But within this realm of choicelessness, we do choose how we live.
A man’s dreams are an index to his greatness.
Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.
The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched – they must be felt with the heart.
Try to be like the turtle – at ease in your own shell.
It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light.
Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree.
Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.
Find a place inside where there’s joy, and the joy will burn out the pain.
Happiness is not something you postpone for the future; it is something you design for the present.
Hope is a waking dream.
I have looked into your eyes with my eyes. I have put my heart near your heart.
Change your thoughts and you change your world.
Believe you can and you’re halfway there.
Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky.
Nothing is impossible, the word itself says ‘I’m possible’!
I hated every minute of training, but I said, ‘Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.’
Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky.
God always gives His best to those who leave the choice with him.
Your present circumstances don’t determine where you can go; they merely determine where you start.
Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.
Every moment and every event of every man’s life on earth plants something in his soul.
A #2 pencil and a dream can take you anywhere.
If you accept the expectations of others, especially negative ones, then you never will change the outcome.
Happiness resides not in possessions, and not in gold, happiness dwells in the soul.
Be faithful to that which exists within yourself.
Health is the greatest possession. Contentment is the greatest treasure. Confidence is the greatest friend. Non-being is the greatest joy.
We can’t help everyone, but everyone can help someone.
Put your heart, mind, and soul into even your smallest acts. This is the secret of success.
God sleeps in the minerals, awakens in plants, walks in animals, and thinks in man.
The fact that I can plant a seed and it becomes a flower, share a bit of knowledge and it becomes another’s, smile at someone and receive a smile in return, are to me continual spiritual exercises.
I am prepared for the worst, but hope for the best.
What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality.
I can’t change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination.
Belief creates the actual fact.
Every charitable act is a stepping stone toward heaven.
Don’t let the fear of striking out hold you back.
A compliment is something like a kiss through a veil.
Show me your hands. Do they have scars from giving? Show me your feet. Are they wounded in service? Show me your heart. Have you left a place for divine love?
You change your life by changing your heart.
Judge each day not by the harvest you reap but by the seeds you plant.
Hope is some extraordinary spiritual grace that God gives us to control our fears, not to oust them.
Cherish your visions and your dreams as they are the children of your soul, the blueprints of your ultimate achievements.
If it were not for hopes, the heart would break.
Whoever is happy will make others happy too.
You don’t look out there for God, something in the sky, you look in you.
And now, this is the sweetest and most glorious day that ever my eyes did see.
A place for everything, everything in its place.
Give light and people will find the way.
On the recollection of so many and great favours and blessings, I now, with a high sense of gratitude, presume to offer up my sincere thanks to the Almighty, the Creator and Preserver.
The best way out is always through.
Faith is love taking the form of aspiration.
There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.
Grace is the beauty of form under the influence of freedom.
There is nothing stronger in the world than gentleness.
How glorious a greeting the sun gives the mountains!
For a gallant spirit there can never be defeat.
Someone’s sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.
With self-discipline most anything is possible.
I believe that one defines oneself by reinvention. To not be like your parents. To not be like your friends. To be yourself. To cut yourself out of stone.
Look within. Within is the fountain of good, and it will ever bubble up, if thou wilt ever dig.
Great hopes make great men.
Man never made any material as resilient as the human spirit.
What great thing would you attempt if you knew you could not fail?
We can change our lives. We can do, have, and be exactly what we wish.
It is only in sorrow bad weather masters us; in joy we face the storm and defy it.
Just what future the Designer of the universe has provided for the souls of men I do not know, I cannot prove. But I find that the whole order of Nature confirms my confidence that, if it is not like our noblest hopes and dreams, it will transcend them.
Thinking: the talking of the soul with itself.
The essential elements of giving are power and love – activity and affection – and the consciousness of the race testifies that in the high and appropriate exercise of these is a blessedness greater than any other.
I pray God may preserve your health and life many years.
Enthusiasm moves the world.
Wonder rather than doubt is the root of all knowledge.
It is always the simple that produces the marvelous.
The truth is on the march and nothing will stop it.
It is by acts and not by ideas that people live.
The power of imagination makes us infinite.
Let each man exercise the art he knows.
Happiness is the natural flower of duty.
Noble deeds that are concealed are most esteemed.
Plant thy foot firmly in the prints which His foot has made before thee.
Tears are often the telescope by which men see far into heaven.
Tears of joy are like the summer rain drops pierced by sunbeams.
The only thing that ultimately matters is to eat an ice-cream cone, play a slide trombone, plant a small tree, good God, now you’re free.
You are always free to change your mind and choose a different future, or a different past.
Men must live and create. Live to the point of tears.
As knowledge increases, wonder deepens.
Nothing makes one feel so strong as a call for help.
It is not ignorance but knowledge which is the mother of wonder.
The only thing that ultimately matters is to eat an ice-cream cone, play a slide trombone, plant a small tree, good God, now you’re free.
As knowledge increases, wonder deepens.
Nurture your minds with great thoughts. To believe in the heroic makes heroes.
Ideas shape the course of history.
Think with your whole body.
The meaning I picked, the one that changed my life: Overcome fear, behold wonder.
Thought is the wind, knowledge the sail, and mankind the vessel.
I am deliberate and afraid of nothing.
We convince by our presence.
Mankind is made great or little by its own will.
Joy descends gently upon us like the evening dew, and does not patter down like a hailstorm.
Our ideals are our better selves.
Let me be a free man. Free to travel. Free to stop. Free to work. Free to choose my own teachers. Free to follow the religion of my fathers. Free to think and talk and act for myself.
Try not to become a man of success but a man of value.
If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put foundations under them.
Inspiration and genius–one and the same.
To find what you seek in the road of life, the best proverb of all is that which says: ‘Leave no stone unturned.’
If you would create something, you must be something.
Every artist was first an amateur.
The more difficulties one has to encounter, within and without, the more significant and the higher in inspiration his life will be.
Life has no smooth road for any of us; and in the bracing atmosphere of a high aim the very roughness stimulates the climber to steadier steps, till the legend, over steep ways to the stars, fulfills itself.
Experience is the child of thought, and thought is the child of action.
Don’t wait for extraordinary opportunities. Seize common occasions and make them great.
Do we not all agree to call rapid thought and noble impulse by the name of inspiration?
No great man ever complains of want of opportunities.
Men do less than they ought, unless they do all they can.
Happy are those who dream dreams and are ready to pay the price to make them come true.
The power of imagination makes us infinite.
First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do.
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act but a habit.
Take calculated risks. That is quite different from being rash.
Storms make oaks take roots.
When things go wrong as they sometimes will; When the road you’re trudging seems all uphill; When the funds are low, and the debts are high and you want to smile, but have to sigh; When care is pressing you down a bit- Rest if you must, but do not quit. Success is failure turned inside out; The silver tint of the clouds of doubt; And you can never tell how close you are It may be near when it seems so far; So stick to the fight when you’re hardest hit- It’s when things go wrong that you must not quit.
Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure…than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.
Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.
Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.
Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.
I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’ and it will move.
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while DARING GREATLY so that his place shall never be with those timid souls who know neither victory or defeat.
Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goals.
The men who try to do something and fail are infinitely better than those who try to do nothing and succeed.
Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear.
Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all.
What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light not our darkness that frightens us. We ask ourselves ‘who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?’
Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn’t serve the world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; its in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.
Everybody can be great…because anybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.
A wise woman who was traveling in the mountains found a precious stone in a stream. The next day she met another traveler who was hungry, and the wise woman opened her bag to share her food. The hungry traveler saw the precious stone and asked the woman to give it to him. She did so without hesitation. The traveler left, rejoicing in his good fortune. He knew the stone was worth enough to give him security for a lifetime. But a few days later he came back to return the stone to the wise woman. ‘I’ve been thinking,’ he said, ‘I know how valuable the stone is, but I give it back in the hope that you can give me something even more precious. Give me what you have within you that enabled you to give me the stone.’
A man has made at least a start on discovering the meaning of human life when he plants shade trees under which he knows full well he will never sit.
You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.
I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do something I can do.
Never look down on anybody unless you’re helping them up.
The place to improve the world is first in one’s own heart and head and hands.
You cannot do a kindness too soon because you never know how soon it will be too late.
It is not only for what we do that we are held responsible, but also for what we do not do.
So long as we love we serve; So long as we are loved by others, I would almost say that we are indispensable; And no one is useless while they have a friend.
Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared
Be not forgetful to entertain strangers for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.
It is one of the most beautiful compensations of this life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.
The distance is nothing; it is only the first step that is difficult.