Don’t try to be spiritual. That is only a word in the dictionary. Make it your goal to become a normally functioning individual. Let these principles shape you according to your real nature of a simple, decent, honest, unafraid human being.
—Vernon Howard (1918–92) American Author, Philosopher
Regrets are idle; yet history is one long regret. Everything might have turned out so differently!
—Charles Dudley Warner (1829–1900) American Essayist, Novelist
Trying is only emphasizing the thing we know.
—F. Matthias Alexander (1869–1955) Australian Actor, Educationalist
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
I do not believe great organizations have ever been built by trying to emulate another, any more than individual greatness is achieved by trying to copy another “great person”.
—Peter Senge (b.1947) American Management Consultant, Author, Scientist
When the soul of a man is born in this country there are nets flown at it to hold it back from flight.
—James Joyce (1882–1941) Irish Novelist, Poet
When we let someone be who they are without trying to change them, that is giving away love. When we trust that someone can handle his or her own life, and act accordingly, that is giving away love.
—Susan Jeffers (1938–2012) American Psychologist, Self-Help Author
Don’t try to live. Let yourself be lived.
—Vernon Howard (1918–92) American Author, Philosopher
The third level of wanting is “I commit to being rich”. The definition of the word commit is to “devote oneself unreservedly”. This means holding absolutely nothing back; giving 100 percent of everything you’ve got to achieving wealth. It means being willing to do whatever it takes for as long as it takes. This is the warrior’s way. No excuses, no ifs, no butts, no maybes—and failure isn’t an option. The warrior’s way is simple: “I will be rich or I will die trying”.
—T. Harv Eker (b.1954) American Motivational Speaker, Lecturer, Author
The instinct of nearly all societies is to lock up anybody who is truly free. First, society begins by trying to beat you up. If this fails, they try to poison you. If this fails too, the finish by loading honors on your head.
—Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) French Poet, Playwright, Film Director
A teacher of fear can’t bring peace on earth. We have been trying to do it that way for thousands of years. The person who turns inner violence around, the person who finds peace inside and lives it, is the one who teaches what true peace is. We are waiting for just one teacher. You’re the one.
—Byron Katie (b.1942) American Speaker, Author
I think every person should be able to enjoy life. Try to decide what you most enjoy doing, and then look around to see if there is a job for which you could prepare yourself that would enable you to continue having this sort of joy.
—Linus Pauling (1901–94) American Scientist, Peace Activist
The most important and visible outcropping of the action bias in excellent companies is their willingness to try things out, to experiment. If you wait until you believe you are safe, sure to be without occasional foolish feelings, you’ve most likely waited too long.
—Tom Peters (b.1942) American Management Consultant, Author
The only service that you can render God is to give expression to what he is trying to give to the world, through you. The only service you can render God is to make the very most of yourself in order that God may live in you to the utmost of your possibilities.
—Wallace Wattles (1860–1911) American New Thought 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 K. Cooper (b.1957) American Author, Psychologist
It is one of the beautiful compensations of life that no man can sincerely try to help another, without helping himself.
—Gamaliel Bailey (1807–59) American Journalist
Always try to be yourself.
—Russell Simmons (b.1957) American Music Promoter
To think that I know what’s best for anyone else is to be out of my business. Even in the name of love, it is pure arrogance, and the result is tension, anxiety, and fear. Do I know what’s right for me? That is my only business. Let me work with that before I try to solve problems for you.
—Byron Katie (b.1942) American Speaker, Author
Each of us in our own way can try to spread compassion into people’s hearts. Western civilizations these days place great importance on filling the human “brain” with knowledge, but no one seems to care about filling the human “heart” with compassion. This is what the real role of religion is.
—The 14th Dalai Lama (b.1935) Tibetan Buddhist Leader, Civil Rights Advocate, Author
It’s imperative to realize that it is not necessary to try to get rid of fear in order to succeed. Rich and successful people have fear, rich and successful people have doubts, rich and successful people have worries. They just don’t let these feelings stop them. Unsuccessful people have fears, doubts, and worries, then let those feelings stop them.
—T. Harv Eker (b.1954) American Motivational Speaker, Lecturer, Author
When anything is pointed out, our only idea is to go from wrong to right; in spite of the fact that it has taken us years to get to wrong we try to get right in a moment.
—F. Matthias Alexander (1869–1955) Australian Actor, Educationalist
If you haven’t failed, you’re not trying hard enough.
—Unknown
It’s easy to act as if you are a weathervane, always changing your beliefs and words, trying to please everyone around you. But we were born to be lighthouses, not weathervanes. Imagine a vertical axis running through the center of your heart, from your deepest roots to your highest aspirations. That’s your lighthouse. It anchors you in the world and frees you from having to change directions every time the weather shifts. Inside this lighthouse there is a lens and a light. The light represents who you are when nobody else is looking. That light was meant to keep shining, no matter how dark or stormy it gets outside…when you find that light inside you, you will know it. Don’t let anyone else dim it…and one more thing: remember to look for the light inside others. If at first you can’t see it, look deeper. It’s there.
—Robert K. Cooper (b.1957) American Author, Psychologist
What is courage? This courage will not be the opposite of despair. We shall often be faced with despair, as indeed every sensitive person has been during the last several decades in this country. Hence Kierkegaard and Nietzsche and Camus and Sartre have proclaimed that courage is not the absence of despair; it is, rather, the capacity to move ahead in spite of despair.
—Rollo May (1909–94) American Philosopher
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.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
Poor people will do almost anything to avoid problems. They see a challenge and they run … the secret to success, my friends, is not to try to avoid or get rid of or shrink from your problems; the secret is to grow yourself so that you are bigger than your problems.
—T. Harv Eker (b.1954) American Motivational Speaker, Lecturer, Author
The Principle of Power gives us just what we ask of it; if we only undertake little things, it only gives us power for little things; but if we try to do great things in a great way it gives us all the power there is.
—Wallace Wattles (1860–1911) American New Thought Author
If you want reality to be different than what it is, you might as well try to teach a cat to bark.
—Byron Katie (b.1942) American Speaker, Author
But whoso is heroic must find crises to try his edge. Human virtue demands her champions and martyrs, and the trial of persecution always proceeds.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
Don’t try to be unafraid. That is impossible. Rather, go ahead while being afraid. That is the entire secret for abolishing fear. The Supermind teaches us to have no self-concern at all. Whatever happens to you, act as though it happened to someone else.
—Vernon Howard (1918–92) American Author, Philosopher
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