I am talking about the power within the self. This means power over your perceptions of the world, power over how you react to situations in your life, power to do what is necessary for your own self-growth, power to create joy and satisfaction in your life, power to act, and power to love.
—Susan Jeffers (1938–2012) American Psychologist, Self-Help Author
Every mind was made for growth, for knowledge, and its nature is sinned against when it is doomed to ignorance.
—William Ellery Channing (1780–1842) American Unitarian Theologian, Poet
Then bless thy secret growth, nor catch At noise, but thrive unseen and dumb; Keep clean, be as fruit, earn life, and watch, Till the white-wing’d reapers come.
—Henry Vaughan (1621–95) Anglo-Welsh Metaphysical Poet
Rich people see opportunities. Poor people see obstacles. Rich people see potential growth. Poor people see potential loss. Rich people focus on rewards. Poor focus on the risks.
—T. Harv Eker (b.1954) American Motivational Speaker, Lecturer, Author
However, a good life consists of more than simply the totality of enjoyable experiences. It must also have a meaningful pattern, a trajectory of growth that results in the development of increasing emotional, cognitive, and social complexity.
—Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1934–2021) Hungarian-American Psychologist
If you play it safe in life, you’ve decided that you don’t want to grow anymore.
—Shirley Hufstedler (1925–2016) American Lawyer, Jurist
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
Little by little, wean yourself.This is the gist of what I have to say.
—Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi (1207–73) Persian Muslim Mystic
He who has always spared himself much will in the end become sickly of so much consideration. Praised be what hardens!
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German Philosopher, Scholar, Writer
The harvest of old age is the recollection and abundance of blessing previously secured.
—Cicero (106BCE–43BCE) Roman Philosopher, Orator, Politician, Lawyer
If you would attain to what you are not yet, you must always be displeased by what you are. For where you are pleased with yourself there you have remained. Keep adding, keep walking, keep advancing.
—Augustine of Hippo (354–430) Roman-African Christian Philosopher
Strength and growth come only through continuous effort and struggle.
—Napoleon Hill (1883–1970) American Author, Journalist, Attorney, Lecturer
Every life form seems to strive to its maximum except human beings. How tall will a tree grow? As tall as it possibly can. Human beings, on the other hand, have been given the dignity of choice. You can choose to be all or you can choose to be less. Why not stretch up to the full measure of the challenge and see what all you can do?
—Jim Rohn (1930–2009) American Entrepreneur, Author, Motivational Speaker
I hope you will go out and let stories happen to you, and that you will work them, water them with your blood and tears and you laughter till they bloom, till you yourself burst into bloom.
—Clarissa Pinkola Estes (b.1945) American Poet, Psychoanalyst
The seed cannot know what is going to happen, the seed has never known the flower. And the seed cannot even believe that he has the potentiality to become a beautiful flower. Long is the journey, and it is always safer not to go on that journey because unknown is the path, nothing is guaranteed.
Nothing can be guaranteed. Thousand and one are the hazards of the journey, many are the pitfalls – and the seed is secure, hidden inside a hard core. But the seed tries, it makes an effort; it drops the hard shell which is its security, it starts moving. Immediately the fight starts: the struggle with the soil, with the stones, with the rocks. And the seed was very hard and the sprout will be very, very soft and dangers will be many.
There was no danger for the seed, the seed could have survived for millennia, but for the sprout many are the dangers. But the sprout starts towards the unknown, towards the sun, towards the source of light, not knowing where, not knowing why. Great is the cross to be carried, but a dream possesses the seed and the seed moves.
—Sri Rajneesh (Osho) (1931–90) Indian Spiritual Teacher
It takes courage to push yourself to places that you have never been before… to test your limits… to break through barriers. And the day came when the risk it took to remain tight inside the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.
—Anais Nin (1903–77) French-American Essayist
A child-like man is not a man whose development has been arrested; on the contrary, he is a man who has given himself a chance of continuing to develop long after most adults have muffled themselves in the cocoon of middle-aged habit and convention.
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) English Humanist, Pacifist, Essayist, Short Story Writer, Satirist
We’re all fools…all the time. It’s just we’re a different kind each day. We think, I’m not a fool today. I’ve learned my lesson. I was a fool yesterday but not this morning. Then tomorrow we find out that, yes, we were a fool today too. I think the only way we can grow and get on in this world is to accept the fact we’re not perfect and live accordingly.
—Ray Bradbury (b.1920) American Novelist, Short Story Writer
Life doesn’t do anything to you. It only reveals your spirit.
—John C. Maxwell (b.1947) American Christian Professional Speaker, Author, Clergyman
I will grow. I will become something new and grand, but no grander than I now am. Just as the sky will be different in a few hours, its present perfection and completeness is not deficient, so am I presently perfect and not deficient because I will be different tomorrow. I will grow and I am not deficient.
—Wayne Dyer (1940–2015) American Self-Help Author
Don’t go through life, grow through life.
—Eric Butterworth (1916–2003) American Spirituality Writer
The key to growth is the introduction of higher dimensions of consciousness into our awareness.
—Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan (1916–2004) British Sufi Mystic, Religious Leader, Psychologist
We do not grow absolutely, chronologically. We grow sometimes in one dimension, and not in another; unevenly. We grow partially. We are relative. We are mature in one realm, childish in another. The past, present, and future mingle and pull us backward, forward, or fix us in the present. We are made up of layers, cells, constellations.
—Anais Nin (1903–77) French-American Essayist
We grow a little every time we do not take advantage of somebody’s weakness.
—Bert Williams (1876–1922) American Entertainer, Actor
I am a frayed and nibbled survivor in a fallen world, and I am getting along. I am aging and eaten and have done my share of eating too. I am not washed and beautiful, in control of a shining world in which everything fits, but instead am wondering awed about on a splintered wreck I’ve come to care for, whose gnawed trees breathe a delicate air, whose bloodied and scarred creatures are my dearest companions, and whose beauty bats and shines not in its imperfections but overwhelmingly in spite of them…
—Annie Dillard (b.1945) Essayist, Novelist, Poet, Naturalist, Mystic
Thou mayest as well expect to grow stronger by always eating, as wiser by always reading. Too much overcharges Nature, and turns more into disease than nourishment. ‘Tis thought and digestion which make books serviceable, and give health and vigor to the mind.
—Thomas Fuller (1608–61) English Cleric, Historian
Close scrutiny will show that most “crisis situations” are opportunities to either advance, or stay where you are.
—Maxwell Maltz (1899–1975) American Surgeon, Motivational Writer
Look not mournfully into the Past. It comes not back again. Wisely improve the Present. It is thine. Go forth to meet the shadowy Future, without fear, and with a manly heart.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–82) American Poet, Educator, Academic
All growth is a leap in the dark, a spontaneous, unpremeditated act without benefit of experience.
—Henry Miller (1891–1980) American Novelist
You must do right before you feel good.
—John C. Maxwell (b.1947) American Christian Professional Speaker, Author, Clergyman