The single biggest difference between financial success and financial failure is how well you manage your money. It’s simple: to master money, you must manage money.
—T. Harv Eker (b.1954) American Motivational Speaker, Lecturer, Author
Life is too short for theatrics, for face time, for jumping through hoops, for excuses, for blaming, for trying too hard to please others, or for chasing society’s illusion of distant riches or fame.
—Robert Cooper (b.1947) British Diplomat
Jane Fonda, who divided her life into three acts, decided after her sixtieth birthday that she was now facing the final act, and came to the following conclusion: “I thought to myself, well if that’s the case and if what I’m scared of isn’t death, but getting to the end with regrets, then I’ve got to figure out what would be the things that I would regret when I got to the last act if I hadn’t done them or achieved them by then. And they were: having an intimate relationship and having made a difference”.
—Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1934–2021) Hungarian-American Psychologist
If we expended all our energies solely on taking care of our own needs we would stop growing. In that respect what we call “soul” can be viewed as the surplus energy that can be invested into change and transformation. As such, it is the cutting edge of evolution.
—Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1934–2021) Hungarian-American Psychologist
But the bravest man amongst us is afraid of himself. The mutilation of the savage has its tragic survival in the self-denial that mars our lives. We are punished for our refusals. Every impulse that we strive to strangle broods in the mind and poisons us. The body sins once, and has done with its sin, for action is a mode of purification. Nothing remains then but the recollection of a pleasure, or the luxury of a regret. The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself, with desire for what its monstrous laws have made monstrous and unlawful. It has been said that the great events of the world take place in the brain. It is in the brain, and the brain only, that the great sins of the world take place also.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
Focus on all four of your net worth factors: increasing your income, increasing your savings, increasing your investment returns, and decreasing your cost of living by simplifying your lifestyle.
—T. Harv Eker (b.1954) American Motivational Speaker, Lecturer, Author
Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness concerning all acts of initiative and creation. There is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans; that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen events, meetings and material assistance which no one could have dreamed would have come their way. I have learned a deep respect for one of Goethe’s couplets: “Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now!”
—William Hutchinson Murray (1913–96) Scottish Mountaineer
We are at a crossroads in human history. Never before has there been a moment so simultaneously perilous and promising. We are the first species to have taken evolution into our own hands.
—Carl Sagan (1934–96) American Astronomer
Man-like it is to fall into sin; fiendlike it is to dwell therein.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–82) American Poet, Educator, Academic
A leader will find it difficult to articulate a coherent vision unless it expresses his core values, his basic identity…one must first embark on the formidable journey of self-discovery in order to create a vision with authentic soul.
—Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1934–2021) Hungarian-American Psychologist
Sin with the multitude, and your responsibility and guilt are as great and as truly personal, as if you alone had done the wrong.
—Tryon Edwards American Theologian
Preachers denounce sin as if it was available to everyone.
—Frank Lane (1896–1981) American Sportsperson, Businessperson
In all adversities there is always in its depth, a treasure of spiritual blessings secretly hidden.
—Swami Chinmayananda (1916–93) Indian Hindu Spiritual Teacher
The just man may sin with an open chest of gold before him.
—Italian Proverb
Do you want a successful career or a close relationship with your family? Both! Do you want a focus on business or have fun and play? Both! Do you want money or meaning in your life? Both! Do you want to earn a fortune or do the work you love? Both! Poor people always choose one, rich people choose both.
—T. Harv Eker (b.1954) American Motivational Speaker, Lecturer, Author
Healing is the process of accepting all, then choosing best.
—Neale Donald Walsch (b.1943) American Spiritual Writer
Those who do unlawful acts are no more sinners in the eyes of God than we who think them.
—Elbert Hubbard (1856–1915) American Writer, Publisher, Artist, Philosopher
Sin is, essentially, a departure from God.
—Martin Luther (1483–1546) German Protestant Theologian
About Mike the construction worker, friend of Roark: “He worshipped expertness of any kind. He loved his work passionately and had no tolerance for anything save for other single-track devotions. He was a master in his own filed and felt no sympathy except for mastery. His view of the world was simple: there were the able and there were the incompetent; he was not concerned with the latter.
—Ayn Rand (1905–82) Russian-born American Novelist, Philosopher
I must create a system, or be enslav’d by another man’s; I will not reason and compare: my business is to create.
—William Blake (1757–1827) English Poet, Painter, Printmaker
It is really true what philosophy tells us, that life must be understood backwards. But with this, one forgets the second proposition, that it must be lived forwards.
—Soren Kierkegaard (1813–55) Danish Philosopher, Theologian
All sins cast long shadows.
—Irish Proverb
How immense appear to us the sins that we have not committed.
—Suzanne Curchod (1739–94) French-Swiss Salonist, Writer
For the sin they do by two and two they must pay for one by one.
—Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) British Children’s Books Writer, Short story, Novelist, Poet, Journalist
We cannot well do without our sins; they are the highway of our virtue.
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–62) American Philosopher
Just imagine you’re four years old, and someone makes the following proposal: If you’ll wait until after he runs an errand, you can have two marshmallows for a treat. If you can’t wait until then, you can have only one—but you can have it right now. It is a challenge sure to try the soul of any four-year-old, a microcosm of the eternal battle between impulse and restraint, id and ego, desire and self-control, gratification and delay… There is perhaps no psychological skill more fundamental than resisting impulse. It is the root of all emotional self-control, since all emotions, by their very nature, led to one or another impulse to act.
—Daniel Goleman (b.1946) American Psychologist, Author, Science Journalist
Even the most evil of men and women, if you understand their hearts, had some generous act that redeems them, at least a little, from their sins.
—Orson Scott Card (b.1951) American Author
A great sin is a course of wickedness abridged into one act.
—Robert South (1634–1716) English Theologian, Preacher
Contrary to what most of us believe, happiness does not simply happen to us. It’s something that we make happen, and it results from doing our best. Feeling fulfilled when we live up to our potentialities is what motivates differentiation and leads to evolution.
—Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1934–2021) Hungarian-American Psychologist
People of substance may sin without being exposed for their stolen pleasure; but servants and the poorer sort of women have seldom an opportunity of concealing a big belly, or at least the consequences of it.
—Bernard Mandeville (1670–1733) Anglo-Dutch Philosopher, Satirist
All sins have their origin in a sense of inferiority otherwise called ambition.
—Cesare Pavese (1908–50) Italian Novelist, Poet, Critic, Translator
When each of these three elements of vision—concern for excellence, for people and for the wider environment—are present, business is transformed from a tool for making profits into a creative, humane experiment for improving life.
—Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1934–2021) Hungarian-American Psychologist
Half a century ago, the Austrian psychiatrist Viktor Frankl wrote that happiness cannot be attained by wanting to be happy – it must come as the unintended consequence of working for a goal greater than oneself.
—Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1934–2021) Hungarian-American Psychologist
I fear nothing but doing wrong.
—Laurence Sterne (1713–68) Irish Anglican Novelist, Clergyman
A bird does not sing because he has an answer. He sings because he has a song.
—Joan Walsh Anglund (b.1926) American Poet, Children’s Book Author
How can we remember our ignorance, which our growth requires, when we are using our knowledge all the time?
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–62) American Philosopher
Unlikely accomplishments are borne out of single-minded purposefulness. Future superstars don’t get there by keeping part of their heart in reserve.
—John Eliot (b.1971) American Psychologist, Academic
If you err it is not for me to punish you. We are punished by our sins not for them.
—Elbert Hubbard (1856–1915) American Writer, Publisher, Artist, Philosopher
Even as a water-pot can be filled by the dripping of water, so a villain can be filled by his gradually accumulated evils.
—Buddhist Teaching
If you’re not a risk taker, you should get the hell out of business.
—Ray Kroc (1902–84) American Entrepreneur, Businessperson
Our jobs determine to a large extent what our lives are like. Is what you do for a living making you ill? Does it keep you from becoming a more fully realized person? Do you feel ashamed of what you have to do at work? All too often, the answer to such questions is yes. Yet it does not have to be like that. Work can be one of the most joyful, most fulfilling aspects of life. Whether it will be or not depends on the actions we collectively take.
—Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1934–2021) Hungarian-American Psychologist
Had proven himself a leader of remarkable ability, a man not only of enterprising ideas, but with the staying power to carry them out.
—David McCullough (b.1933) American Historian
God may forgive sins, he said, but awkwardness has no forgiveness in heaven or earth.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
Really to sin you have to be serious about it.
—Henrik Ibsen (1828–1906) Norwegian Playwright
Sin is never at a stay; if we do not retreat from it, we shall advance in it; and the further on we go, the more we have to come back.
—Isaac Barrow
Men are not punished for their sins, but by them.
—Elbert Hubbard (1856–1915) American Writer, Publisher, Artist, Philosopher
Attention is psychic energy, and like physical energy, unless we allocate some part of it to the task at hand, no work gets done.
—Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1934–2021) Hungarian-American Psychologist
The essence of man is his freedom. Sin is committed in that freedom. Sin can therefore not be attributed to a defect in his essence. It can only be understood as a self-contradiction, made possible by the fact of his freedom but not following necessarily from it.
—Reinhold Niebuhr (1892–1971) American Christian Theologian
I am a man more sinned against than sinning.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
So near are the boundaries of panegyric and invective, that a worn-out sinner is sometimes found to make the best declaimer against sin. The same high-seasoned descriptions which in his unregenerate state served to inflame his appetites, in his new province of a moralist will serve him (a little turned) to expose the enormity of those appetites in other men.
—Charles Lamb (1775–1834) British Essayist, Poet