You will find many very different people below. Some of them may believe in or have stood for things you don’t agree with. Some of them are people who believe in or stood for things I don’t agree with either.
But I don’t believe in some puritanical idea that a person’s wisdom is invalidated by beliefs you disagree with, no matter how strongly. Follow that path to it’s end and it is the same as saying that if a person disagrees with you on anything you consider important enough, that person loses their right to speak.
Instead, I believe wisdom can come from many places, and considering the source shouldn’t be the same as throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Many people who aren’t perfect have something profound to say. These quotes mean something to me, and I hope they will make you think too.
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The moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now. – William Hutchinson Murray
The desire for safety stands against every great and noble enterprise. – Tacitus
I have lived a long life and had many troubles, most of which never happened. – Mark Twain
You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, ‘I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.’ You must do the thing you think you cannot do. – Eleanor Roosevelt
Whatever your sex or position, life is a battle in which you are to show your pluck, and woe be to the coward. Whether passed on a bed of sickness or a tented field, it is ever the same fair play and admits no foolish distinction. Despair and postponement are cowardice and defeat. Men were born to succeed, not to fail. – Henry David Thoreau
Courage is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees all others.
— Winston Churchill
The indispensable first step to getting the things you want out of life is this: decide what you want. – Ben Stein
Decide upon your major definite purpose in life and then organize all your activities around it. – Brian Tracy
What we have done for ourselves alone dies with us; what we have done for others and the world remains and is immortal. – Albert Pike
You have not lived today until you have done something for someone who can never repay you. – John Bunyan
We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give. – Winston Churchill
Not being able to do everything is no excuse for not doing everything you can. – Ashleigh Brilliant
Success seems to be connected with action. Successful people keep moving. They make mistakes, but they don’t quit. – Conrad Hilton
I would rather regret the things I have done than the things I have not. – Lucille Ball
Do not lie in a ditch, and say God help me; use the lawful tools He hath lent thee. – English Proverb
Most people spend more time planning their grocery shopping than designing their future. The basic difference between people who live their dreams and those who only dream about how they would live, are the accuracy of their plans, their ability to generate new ideas, and their ability to take action. – Unknown
A good plan implemented today is better than a perfect plan implemented tomorrow. – George S Patton
Luck comes to a man who puts himself in the way of it. You went where something might be found and you found something, simple as that. – Louis L’Amour
What we think or what we know or what we believe is, in the end, of little consequence, The only consequence is what we do. – John Ruskin
Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice; it is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved. – William Jennings Bryan
If you stand up and be counted, from time to time you may get yourself knocked down. But remember this: A man flattened by an opponent can get up again. A man flattened by conformity stays down for good. – Thomas J Watson
No person was ever honored for what he received. Honor has been the reward for what he gave. – Calvin Coolidge
The characteristic of a genuine heroism is its persistency. All men have wandering impulses, fits and starts of generosity. But when you have resolved to be great, abide by yourself, and do not weakly try to reconcile yourself with the world. The heroic cannot be the common, nor the common the heroic. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan press on has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race. – Calvin Coolidge
Somewhere deep down we know that in the final analysis, we do decide things and that even our decisions to let someone else decide are really our decisions, however pusillanimous. – Harvery Cox
Is your cucumber bitter? Throw it away. Are there briars in your path? Turn aside. That is enough. Do not go on and say, ‘Why were things of this sort ever brought into the world?’ – Marcus Aurelius
Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far they can go. _ T.S. Eliot
To the person who does not know where he wants to go there is no favorable wind. – Seneca
All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes to make it possible. – T.E. Lawrence
Some believe there is nothing one man or one woman can do against the enormous array of the world’s ills — against misery, against ignorance, or injustice and violence. Yet many of the world’s great movements, of thought and action, have flowed from the work of a single man. A young monk began the Protestant reformation, a young general extended an empire from Macedonia to the borders of the earth, and a young woman reclaimed the territory of France. It was a young Italian explorer who discovered the New World, and 32 year old Thomas Jefferson who proclaimed that all men are created equal. ‘Give me a place to stand,’ said Archimedes, ‘and I will move the world.’ These men moved the world, and so can we all. – Robert F. Kennedy
The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise. – F. Scott Fitzgerald
The only way to predict the future is to have the power to shape it. – Eric Hoffer
Action may not always bring happiness, but there is no happiness without action. – Benjamin Disraeli
Do not say things. What you are stands over you the while, and thunders, so that I cannot hear what you say to the contrary. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly, now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it. – Talmud
It doesn’t work to leap a twenty-foot chasm in two ten-foot jumps. – Proverb
They say that time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself. – Andy Warhol
I cannot say whether things will get better if we change; what I can say is they must change if they are to get better. – Georg C Lichtenberg
The most decisive actions of our life … are most often unconsidered actions. – Andre Gide
You’re not obligated to win. You’re obligated to keep trying to do the best you can every day. – Marian Wright Edelman
The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers. M Scott Peck
All good is hard. All evil is easy. Dying, losing, cheating, and mediocrity is easy. Stay away from easy. Scott Alexander
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. – Mark Twain
Skill to do comes of doing. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all. – Peter Drucker
Efficiency is doing things right; effectiveness is doing the right things. – Peter Drucker
Action indeed is the sole medium of expression for ethics. – Jane Addams
You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life. Albert Camus
Nothing is easier than saying words. Nothing is harder than living them day after day.
— Arthur Gordon
Men acquire a particular quality by constantly acting in a particular way.
— Aristotle
Winning is a habit. Unfortunately, so is losing. – Vince Lombardi
It is a bad plan that admits of no modification. – Publilius Syrius
Everything is in a process of change, nothing endures; we do not seek permanence. – Masatoshi Naito
What separates the winners from the losers is how a person reacts to each new twist of fate. – Donald Trump
It’s easy to come up with new ideas; the hard part is letting go of what worked for you two years ago, but will soon be out of date. – Roger Von Oech
Everything you want is just outside your comfort zone. – Robert Allen
The great mystery isn’t that people do things badly but that they occasionally do a few things well. The only thing that is universal is incompetence. Strength is always specific! Nobody ever commented, for example, that the great violinist Jascha Heifetz probably couldn’t play the trumpet very well. Peter Drucker
There is no greatness without a passion to be great, whether it’s the aspiration of an athlete or an artist, a scientist, a parent, or a businessperson. – Tony Robbins
Nobody’s a natural. You work hard to get good and then work to get better. It’s hard to stay on top. Paul Coffey
The will to win is worthless if you do not have the will to prepare. – Thane Yost
Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work. – Stephen King
The measure of success is not whether you have a tough problem to deal with, but whether it is the same problem you had last year. John Foster Dulles
The most serious mistakes are not being made as a result of wrong answers. The truly dangerous thing is asking the wrong questions. Peter Drucker
You want to set a goal that is big enough that in the process of achieving it you become someone worth becoming. – Jim Rohn
We can chart our future clearly and wisely only when we know the path which has led to the present. Adlai Stevenson
The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it. – Michaelangelo
If you are bored with life, if you don’t get up every morning with a burning desire to do things—you don’t have enough goals. Lou Holtz
In the long run men hit only what they aim at. – Henry David Thoreau
Make it a point to do something every day that you don’t want to do. This is the golden rule for acquiring the habit of doing your duty without pain. – Mark Twain
Let him who would enjoy a good future waste none of his present. –Roger Babson
The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me. –Ayn Rand
Fortune sides with him who dares. –Virgil