Efforts

"If you do what you've always done, you'll get what you've always gotten." Anthony Robbins

Accomplishment

"You can do anything, but not everything." David Allen, of Get Things Done

Self-belief

For a man to achieve all that is demanded of him he must regard himself as greater than he is. -Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, poet, dramatist, novelist, and philosopher (1749-1832)

Sorrow

If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man's life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility. -Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, poet (1807-1882)

Balance

Live a balanced life. Learn some and think some, and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some. -Robert Fulghum, author (b. 1937)

Actions

Words are also actions, and actions are a kind of words. -Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher (1803-1882)

Anger

Anger as soon as fed is dead- / 'Tis starving makes it fat. -Emily Dickinson, poet (1830-1886)

Health

A man too busy to take care of his health is like a mechanic too busy to take care of his tools. -Spanish proverb

Consequences

Where the light is brightest, the shadows are deepest. -Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, poet, dramatist, novelist, and philosopher (1749-1832)

Words

Your own words are the bricks and mortar of the dreams you want to realize. Your words are the greatest power you have. The words you choose and their use establish the life you experience.  ~Sonia Choquette

Habits

One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture and, if it were possible, speak a few reasonable words. -Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, poet, dramatist, novelist, and philosopher (1749-1832)

Consequences

Everybody, soon or late, sits down to a banquet of consequences. -Robert Louis Stevenson, novelist, essayist, and poet (1850-1894)

Double dealing

Nothing ruins a face so fast as double-dealing. Your face telling one story to the world. Your heart yanking your face to pieces, trying to let the truth be known. Jessamyn West, novelist (1902-1984)

Evil

One who condones evils is just as guilty as the one who perpetrates it. -Martin Luther King Jr., civil-rights leader (1929-1968)

Progress

If you cannot do great things, do small things in a great way. ~Napoleon Hill

Persistence

Be like a postage stamp. Stick to it until you get there. ~Harvey Mackay

Solitude

Dreams

We sometimes congratulate ourselves at the moment of waking from a troubled dream; it may be so the moment after death. -Nathaniel Hawthorne, writer (1804-1864) 

Liberty

They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. - Benjamin Franklin

Integrity

No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be true. -Nathaniel Hawthorne, writer (1804-1864)

Integrity

This above all: to thine own self be true, / And it must follow, as the night the day, / Thou canst not then be false to any man. -William Shakespeare, poet and dramatist (1564-1616)

Silence

It is better to keep your mouth closed & people think you are a fool, than to open it & remove all doubt. ~ Mark Twain

Theory of Practice

In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. But, in practice, there is. ~ Unknown

Heroes

In our world of big names, curiously, our true heroes tend to be anonymous. In this life of illusion and quasi-illusion, the person of solid virtues who can be admired for something more substantial than his well-known-ness often proves to be the unsung hero: the teacher, the nurse, the mother, the honest cop, the hard worker at lonely, underpaid, unglamorous, unpublicized jobs. -Daniel J Boorstin, historian, professor, attorney, and writer (1914-2004)

Goals

What you get by achieving your goals is not nearly as important as what you become by achieving your goals ~ Zig Ziglar. (Zig passed away on Friday after a long battle with illness).

Untruth

 "Permanent good can never be the outcome of untruth and violence. -Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948) "

Progress

The secret of getting ahead is getting started.  The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one. ~ Mark Twain

Success

"A successful life is a string of successful days." John Cummuta

Ideas

What we behold before our eyes is what we've been holding in our minds. ~Rick Beneteau

Success

Success is not the result of spontaneous combustion. You must set yourself on fire. ~Unknown

Optimism

 There are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind.  ~C.S. Lewis

Observation

As I grow older, I pay less attention to what people say. I just watch what they do. ~ Andrew Carnegie

Motivation

Let him who would move the world, first move himself. ~Socrates

Courage

Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, "I will try again tomorrow".  ~Mary Anne Radmacher

Idleness

"It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one has plenty of work to do. There is no fun in doing nothing when you have nothing to do. Wasting time is merely an occupation then, and a most exhausting one. Idleness, like kisses, to be sweet must be stolen. -Jerome K. Jerome, humorist and playwright (1859-1927)"

Independence

To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize. -Voltaire, philosopher (1694-1778)

Shadows

When small men begin to cast big shadows, it means that the sun is about to set. -Lin Yutang, writer and translator (1895-1976)

Growth

The trees that are slow to grow bear the best fruit. -Moliere, actor and playwright (1622-1673)

Integrity

One cannot do right in one department of life whilst he is occupied in doing wrong in any other department. Life is one indivisible whole. -Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869-1948)

Tolerance

The highest result of education is tolerance. -Helen Keller, author and lecturer (1880-1968)

Skepticism

Men become civilized, not in proportion to their willingness to believe, but in proportion to their readiness to doubt. -H.L. Mencken, writer, editor, and critic (1880-1956)

Communication

What we have overlooked, in our frenzy to invent more dazzling ways and means of communication, is to communicate. ~ Henry Miller

Truth

I have nothing new to teach the world. Truth and non-violence are as old as the hills. All I have done is to try experiments in both on as vast a scale as I could. -Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869-1948)

Persistence

You've got only three choices in life:
Give up;
Give in; or
Give it all you've got!
~ Unknown

Thoughts & Actions

Great thoughts reduced to practice become great acts. -William Hazlitt, essayist (1778-1830)

Music

The music that can deepest reach,
And cure all ill, is cordial speech.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher (1803-1882)

I wish you enough

A heartfelt wish - I wish you enough 

Beginings

Your present circumstances don't determine where you can go; they merely determine where you start. ~Nido Qubein

Thinking

“Very few beings really seek knowledge in this world. Mortal or immortal, few really ask. On the contrary, they try to wring from the unknown the answers they have already shaped in their own minds – justifications, confirmations, forms of consolation without which they can't go on. To really ask is to open the door to the whirlwind. The answer may annihilate the question and the questioner.” – Anne Rice, The Vampire Lestat

Words

Words are the small change of thought. -Jules Renard, writer (1864-1910)

Pretense

Our greatest pretenses are built up not to hide the evil and the ugly in us, but our emptiness. The hardest thing to hide is something that is not there. -Eric Hoffer, philosopher and author (1902-1983)

Medicine

Poisons and medicine are oftentimes the same substance given with different intents. -Peter Mere Latham, physician and educator (1789-1875)

Exercise

"There is no better exercise for your heart than reaching down and helping to lift someone up." -- Bernard Meltzer

Pragmatism

I react pragmatically. Where the market works, I'm for that. Where the government is necessary, I'm for that. I'm deeply suspicious of somebody who says, "I'm in favor of privatization," or, "I'm deeply in favor of public ownership." I'm in favor of whatever works in the particular case. -John Kenneth Galbraith, economist (1908-2006)

Indifference

The world looks with some awe upon a man who appears unconcernedly indifferent to home, money, comfort, rank, or even power and fame. The world feels not without a certain apprehension, that here is someone outside its jurisdiction; someone before whom its allurements may be spread in vain; someone strangely enfranchised, untamed, untrammelled by convention, moving independent of the ordinary currents of human action. -Winston Churchill, politician and statesman (1874-1965)

Knowledge

The desire of knowledge, like the thirst of riches, increases ever with the acquisition of it. -Laurence Sterne, novelist and clergyman (1713-1768)

Conformity

How far should one accept the rules of the society in which one lives? To put it another way: at what point does conformity become corruption? Only by answering such questions does the conscience truly define itself. -Kenneth Tynan, critic and writer (1927-1980)

Conscience

In matters of conscience the law of majority has no place. -Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869-1948)

Money

There was a time when a fool and his money were soon parted, but now it happens to everybody.  - Adlai E. Stevenson

Salt Water

The cure for anything is salt water -- sweat, tears, or the sea. -Isak Dinesen (pen name of Karen Blixen), author (1885-1962)

Compromise

We all agree on the necessity of compromise. We just can't agree on when it's necessary to compromise - Larry Wall, Computer Programmer [Who said nerds don't have a sense of humor?]

Books

In the case of good books, the point is not how many of them you can get through, but rather how many can get through to you. -Mortimer J. Adler, philosopher, educator and author (1902-2001)

Education

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. -Aristotle, philosopher (384-322 BCE) 

Time

The feeling of being hurried is not usually the result of living a full life and having no time. It is on the contrary born of a vague fear that we are wasting our life. When we do not do the one thing we ought to do, we have no time for anything else -- we are the busiest people in the world. -Eric Hoffer, philosopher and author (1902-1983) 

Life

Life is a tragedy for those who feel, and a comedy for those who think. -Jean de la Bruyere, essayist and moralist (1645-1696)

Enjoyment

For sleep, riches and health to be truly enjoyed, they must be interrupted. -Jean Paul Richter, writer (1763-1825) 

Work hard.. where?

If you work hard on your job, you make a living. If you work hard on yourself, you can make a fortune. ~ Jim Rohn

Pretense

We are what we pretend to be, so we should be careful about what we pretend to be. - Kurt Vonnegut

Illusion

The greatest obstacle to discovering the shape of the earth, the continents, and the oceans was not ignorance but the illusion of knowledge. -Daniel J. Boorstin, historian, professor, attorney, and writer (1914-2004)

Discoveries

Who knows what Columbus would have discovered if America hadn't got in the way. -Stanislaw J. Lec, poet and aphorist (1909-1966)

Love & Marriage

Love: a temporary insanity, curable by marriage. -Ambrose Bierce, author and editor (1842-1914) 

Purpose

When I feed the hungry, they call me a saint. When I ask why people are hungry, they call me a communist. -Helder Camara, archbishop (1909-1999) 

Endurance

What is to give light must endure burning. -Viktor Frankl, author, neurologist and psychiatrist, Holocaust survivor (1905-1997) 

Persistence

There comes a time in a man's life when to get where he has to -- if there are no doors or windows -- he walks through a wall. -Bernard Malamud, novelist and short-story writer (1914-1986)