Some have an idea that the reason we in this country discard things so readily is because we have so much. The facts are exactly opposite—the reason we have so much is simply because we discard things so readily. We replace the old in return for something that will serve us better.
—Alfred P. Sloan, Jr. (1875–1966) American Businessman, Philanthropist
When you’re operating on uninvestigated theories of what’s going on and you aren’t even aware of it, you’re in what I call “the dream”. Often the dream becomes troubling; sometimes it even turns into a nightmare. At times like these, you may want to test the truth of your theories by doing The Work on them. The Work always leaves you with less of your uncomfortable story. Who would you be without it? How much of your world is made up of unexamined stories? You’ll never know until you inquire.
—Byron Katie (b.1942) American Speaker, Author
Prevent the things you have been doing and you are half-way home”.
—F. Matthias Alexander (1869–1955) Australian Actor, Educationalist
Have the daring to stop doing the things you really don’t want to do. Can you see them? Look closely. Can you observe the many things you do because you reluctantly feel you should or must? Watch closely. Examine every action and reaction. Do you act naturally or do you act because you feel compelled? If you feel compelled, stop. Compulsion is slavery. Example: Refuse to go along with the crowd.
—Vernon Howard (1918–92) American Spiritual Teacher, Philosopher
The way you create any outcome in your life is to hold the vision of your deepest desires. At the same time, though, you must honestly and accurately assess your current situation and how it relates to your greater vision. By doing this, you engage tension between what is and what can be. This tension is the primary creative force behind the manifestation of any outcome. It’s as natural and powerful as the force of gravity.
—David Emerald
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
In the blood of the martyrs to intolerance are the seeds of unbelief.
—Walter Lippmann (1889–1974) American Journalist, Political Commentator, Writer
Men do less than they ought, unless they do all that they can.
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish Historian, Essayist
Too many of those with unrealized aspirations have set them aside due to fear of failure. The bigger the dream, the greater the fear. Doing less than our best allays this fear. I could have done better if I’d tried, we assure ourselves. Among the least appreciated reasons for doing superficial, second-rate work of any kind is the comfort of knowing it’s not our best that’s on the line. By not trying too hard, we avoid learning what our true potential is, and having to fulfill it. Doing our best can be deeply threatening. It forces us to consider what we’re actually capable of accomplishing. Once we learn that lesson, we can’t unlearn it. Our true potential becomes both a shining light we can follow and an oppressive burden of expectation that might, or might not, be met.
—Unknown
An affirmation states that a goal is already happening. I’m not crazy about this because, often when we affirm something that is not yet real, the little voice in our head usually responds with “This isn’t true, this is BS…On the other hand, a declaration is not saying something is true, it’s saying we have an intention of doing or being something. This is a position the little voice can buy, because we’re not stating it’s true right now, but again, it’s an intention for us ion the future.
—T. Harv Eker (b.1954) American Motivational Speaker, Lecturer, Author
This work somehow awakened my dormant powers of will and I began to practice self-control. At first my resolutions faded like snow in April, but in a little while I conquered my weakness and felt a pleasure I never knew before—that of doing as I willed.
—Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian-American Electrical Engineer, Inventor
What I call “doing the dishes” is the practice of loving the task in front of you. Your inner voice guides you all day long to do simple things such as brush your teeth, drive to work, call your friend, or do the dishes. Even though it’s just another story, it’s a very short story, and when you follow the direction of the voice, the story ends. We are really alive when we live as simply as that—open, waiting, trusting, and loving to do what appears in front of us now…What we need to do unfolds before us, always—doing the dishes, paying the bills, picking up the children’s socks, brushing our teeth. We never receive more than we can handle, and there is always just one thing to do. Whether you have ten dollars or ten million dollars, life never gets more difficult than that.
—Byron Katie (b.1942) American Speaker, Author
The most effective way I know to begin with the end in mind is to develop a personal mission statement or philosophy or creed. It focused on what you want to be (character) and to do (contributions and achievements) and on the values or principles upon which being and doing are based.
—Stephen Covey (1932–2012) American Self-help Author
One of the fundamental differences between the Victim Orientation and this one [Creator] is where you put your focus of attention…For Victims, the focus is always on what they don’t want: the problems that seem constantly to multiply in their lives. They don’t want the person, condition, or circumstance they consider their Persecutor, and they don’t want the fear that leads to fight, flee or freeze reactions, either. Creators, on the other hand, place their focus on what they do want. Doing this, Creators still face and solve problems in the course of creating outcomes they want, but their focus remains fixed on their ultimate vision.
—David Emerald
In the dim background of our mind, we know what we ought to be doing, but somehow we cannot start. Every moment, we expect the spell to break, but it continues, pulse after pulse, and we float with it.
—William James (1842–1910) American Philosopher, Psychologist, Physician
Well done is better than well said.
—Benjamin Franklin (1706–90) American Political Leader, Inventor, Diplomat
Do as you would be done by, is the surest method of pleasing.
—Earl of Chesterfield (1694–1773) English Statesman, Man of Letters
Being selective—doing less—is the path of the productive. Focus on the important few and ignore the rest.
—Tim Ferriss (b.1977) American Self-help Author
The more you struggle to live, the less you live. Give up the notion that you must be sure of what you are doing. Instead, surrender to what is real within you, for that alone is sure. As stars high above earth, you are above everything distressing. But you must awaken to it. Wake up!
—Baruch Spinoza (1632–77) Dutch Philosopher, Theologian
Commitment doesn’t mean that it has to last forever, but while you are there, commit yourself 100%. By doing this, the quality of your life improves 100%.
—Susan Jeffers (1938–2012) American Psychologist, Self-Help Author
The person who understands Dharma will have the opposite reaction to a “hard” job. That person will be eager to get started, no matter what kind of work is in front of her, because she understands that she’s doing God’s work. And when you’re working for God, nothing is too hard.
—Russell Simmons (b.1957) American Music Promoter
How many years must a man do nothing, before he can at all know what is to be done and how to do it.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German Poet
When I go into my garden with a spade, and dig a bed, I feel such an exhilaration and health that I discover that I have been defrauding myself all this time in letting others do for me what I should have done with my own hands.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
Believe it or not, it is not only possible to accomplish more by doing less, it is mandatory. Enter the world of elimination.
—Tim Ferriss (b.1977) American Self-help Author
In the real world, those of us who are most productive, successful, and satisfied focus not on fixing feelings or manipulating thoughts, but on what needs to be done—and then doing it—no matter what thoughts or feelings arise.
—Dan Millman (b.1946) American Children’s Books Writer, Sportsperson
No man needs sympathy because he has to work. Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.
—Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American Head of State, Political leader, Historian, Explorer
To excel means to reach beyond the best you have ever given because doing so matters to you personally, for its own sake. It means to run your own race—as an individual, team, or organization. To excel is to know your greatest strengths and passions, and to emphasize them while honestly admitting and managing your weaknesses.
—Robert Cooper (b.1947) British Diplomat
To do is to be.
—Socrates (469BCE–399BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher
Knowing and not doing are equal to not knowing at all.
—Unknown
To be a top performer you have to be passionately committed to what you’re doing and insanely confident about your ability to pull it off.
—John Eliot (b.1971) American Psychologist, Academic
It is not only what we do, but also what we do not do for which we are accountable.
—Moliere (1622–73) French Playwright
Doing more of what doesn’t work won’t make it work any better.
—Charles J. Givens (1941–98) American Self-Help Writer
It is the greatest of all mistakes to do nothing because you can only do a little. Do what you can.
—Sydney Smith (1771–1845) English Clergyman, Essayist, Wit
Cast out pride and vanity; have no thought of trying to rule over others or of outdoing them.
—Wallace Wattles (1860–1911) American New Thought Author
I will just create, and if it works, it works, and if it doesn’t, I’ll create something else. I don’t have any limitations on what I think I could do or be.
—Oprah Winfrey (b.1954) American TV Personality
Fear of particular situations dissolved when I finally confronted them. The “doing it” comes before the fear goes away.
—Susan Jeffers (1938–2012) American Psychologist, Self-Help Author
Now I know that when I am angry at my husband, I simply have to ask myself, “What am I not doing in my life that I could be doing that I am blaming him for not doing for me?”
—Susan Jeffers (1938–2012) American Psychologist, Self-Help Author
I’ve always believed in magic. When I wasn’t doing anything in this town, I’d go up every night, sit on Mulholland Drive, look out at the city, stretch out my arms, and say, “Everybody wants to work with me. I’m a really good actor. I have all kinds of great movie offers”. I’d just repeat these things over and over, literally convincing myself that I had a couple movies lined up. I’d drive down that hill, ready to take the world on, going, “Movie offers are out there for me, I just don’t hear them yet”. It was like total affirmations, antidotes to the stuff that stems from my family background.
—Jim Carrey (b.1962) Canadian Actor, Comedian
The greatest thing in the world is for a man to be able to do something well, and say nothing about it.
—E. W. Howe (1853–1937) American Novelist, Editor
Anything that we have to learn we learn by the actual doing of it… we become just by performing just acts, temperate by performing temperate ones, brave by performing brave ones.
—Aristotle (384BCE–322BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher, Scholar
The world is divided into people who do things and people who get the credit. Try, if you can, to belong to the first class. There’s far less competition.
—Dwight Morrow (1873–1931) American Businessman, Diplomat
Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy.
—Dale Carnegie (1888–1955) American Self-Help Author
The most important thing is for you to be your own best friend. Whatever you are doing—don’t put yourself down. Slowly begin to discover which, for you, is the path of the heart. Which path in life will make you grow? That is the path to take.
—Susan Jeffers (1938–2012) American Psychologist, Self-Help Author
Do to others as you would have others do to you, inspires all men with that other maxim of natural goodness a great deal less perfect, but perhaps more useful: Do good to yourself with as little prejudice as you can to others.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–78) Swiss-born French Philosopher
You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
—William J. H. Boetcker (1873–1962) American Presbyterian Minister
Everywhere in life the true question is, not what we have gained, but what we do.
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish Historian, Essayist
It seems mutants have something in their lives called gravy. They know truth, but it is buried under thickening and spices of convenience, materialism, insecurity, and fear. They also have something called frosting. It seems to represent how they spend almost all the seconds of their existence in doing superficial, artificial, temporary, pleasant-tasting, nice appearing projects and spend very few actual seconds of their lives developing their eternal beingness.
—Marlo Morgan (1937–98) American Novelist, Author
If you perform the sacrifice of doing your duty, you do not have to do anything else. Devoted to duty, man attains perfection.
—The Bhagavad Gita Hindu Scripture
Now is no time to think of what you do not have. Think of what you can do with what there is.
—Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American Author, Journalist, Short Story Writer
After you’ve been doing inquiry for a while, if you have the thought “She doesn’t love me,” you just get the immediate turnaround with a smile: “Oh, I’m not loving myself in this moment”.
—Byron Katie (b.1942) American Speaker, Author