First Rate Version

If you make friends with yourself, you will never be alone.  ~ Maxwell Maltz

A friend is a gift you give yourself.  ~ Robert Louis Stevenson

Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.  ~ Oscar Wilde

To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else, is the greatest accomplishment.  ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Be a first rate version of yourself, not a second rate version of someone else.  ~ Judy Garland

Believe in yourself! Have faith in your abilities! Without a humble and reasonable confidence in your own powers you cannot be successful or happy.  ~ Norman Vincent Peale

Quotes about yourself

The Mother of Freedom

Expect nothing.  Live frugally on surprise.  ~ Alice Walker

I am a practitioner of elegant frugality.  I don't feel comfortable telling other people what to do, so I just try and lead by example.  ~ Amory Lovins

Frugality is the daughter of common sense, the sister of moderation, and the mother of freedom.  ~ Samuel Smiles

Cannot people realize how large an income is thrift?  ~ Cicero

We make ourselves rich by making our wants few.  ~ Henry David Thoreau

I think frugality drives innovation, just like other constraints do.  One of the only ways to get out of a tight box is to invent your way out.  ~ Jeff Bezos

Quotes about frugality

Make it a Bestseller

To live is the rarest thing in the world.  Most people exist, that is all.  ~ Oscar Wilde

Do anything, but let it produce joy.  ~ Walt Whitman

If you ask me what I came into this life to do, I will tell you: I came to live out loud.  ~ Emile Zola

Whoever uses the spirit within him creatively is an artist.  To make living itself an art, is the goal.  ~ Henry Miller

Your life is a book; make it a bestseller.  ~ Shanon Grey

Quotes about living life

Go Around It

Don't get set into one form, adapt it and build your own, and let it grow, be like water. Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless — like water. Now you put water in a cup, it becomes the cup; you put water into a bottle it becomes the bottle; you put it in a teapot it becomes the teapot. Now water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.  ~Bruce Lee

Cry. Forgive. Learn. Move on. Let your tears water the seeds of your future happiness.   ~ Steve Maraboli

Water does not resist. Water flows. When you plunge your hand into it, all you feel is a caress. Water is not a solid wall, it will not stop you. But water always goes where it wants to go, and nothing in the end can stand against it. Water is patient. Dripping water wears away a stone. Remember that, my child. Remember you are half water. If you can't go through an obstacle, go around it. Water does.   ~ Margaret Atwood

Quotes about water and life 

To Survive and Thrive

The best part of life is not just surviving, but thriving with passion and compassion and humor and style and generosity and kindness.  ~ Maya Angelou

Live today, not yesterday.  Not tomorrow.  Just today.  Inhabit your moments.  Don't rent them out to tomorrow.  ~ Jerry Spinelli

Thriving.  That's fighting... Surviving is barely getting by.  ~ Jillian Michaels

High above the noise and fear mongering of cynics softly speaks your true self.  ~ Mollie Marti

It takes but one positive thought when given a chance to survive and thrive to empower an entire army of negative thoughts.  ~ Robert H. Schuller

Quotes about surviving

Horizon Leans Forward

There will always be a Frontier where there is an open mind and a willing hand.  ~ Charles F. Kettering

Poetry is like a bird; it ignores all frontiers.  ~ Yevgeny Yevtushenko

Where there is an open mind, there will always be a frontier.  ~ Dorothea Brande

The world is always open  waiting to be discovered.  ~ Dejan Stojanovic

The horizon leans forward, offering you space to place new steps of change.  ~ Maya Angelou

Quotes about the horizon, frontier

Carry it with Us

Travel ennobles the spirit and does away with our prejudices.   ~Oscar Wilde

The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.   ~Augustine

A good traveller has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving.  ~Lao Tzu

Not all those who wander are lost.  ~J.R.R. Tolkien

Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us, or we find it not.   ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
 
We travel, some of us forever, to seek other states, other lives, other souls. ~ Anais Nin 

Quotes about travel

Let Them See

A good example is far better than a good precept.  ~ Dwight L. Moody

Example is not the main thing in influencing others.  It is the only thing.  ~ Albert Schweitzer

Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example.  ~ Mark Twain

If you would convince a man that he does wrong, do right.  But do not care to convince him.  Men will believe what they see.  Let them see.  ~ Henry David Thoreau

We learn by example and by direct experience because there are real limits to the adequacy of verbal instruction.  ~ Malcolm Gladwell

Quotes about setting a good example

To Be Greater

Love is the first ingredient in the relief of suffering.  ~Padre Pio

The most authentic thing about us is our capacity to create, to overcome, to endure, to transform, to love, and to be greater than our suffering.  ~ Ben Okri

Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet.  Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.  ~ Helen Keller

Who will tell whether one happy moment of love or the joy of breathing or walking on a bright morning and smelling the fresh air, is not worth all the suffering and effort which life implies.  ~ Erich Fromm

Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and the unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind.  ~ Bertrand Russell

Quotes about suffering

A New Possibility

The horizon leans forward, offering you space to place new steps of change.  ~ Maya Angelou

We have always held to the hope, the belief, the conviction that there is a better life, a better world, beyond the horizon.  ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt

A person can grow only as much as his horizon allows.  ~ John Powell

You cannot swim for new horizons until you have courage to lose sight of the shore.   ~ William Faulkner

A dream is the bearer of a new possibility, the enlarged horizon, the great hope.  ~ Howard Thurman

Quotes about horizon

Transcendent Moments

In everyone's life at some time, our inner fire goes out.  It is then burst into flame by an encounter.  We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit.  ~ Albert Schweitzer 

It really shocks me when I encounter people who think kindness doesn't matter.  Because I think it's pretty much the only thing that does.  ~ Josh Radnor

Give love and unconditional acceptance to those you encounter, and notice what happens.  ~ Wayne Dyer

I relate to happiness as an ecstatic moment- something you don't create, you encounter.  ~ Yoko Ono

Gratitude bestows reverence, allowing us to encounter everyday epiphanies, those transcendent moments of awe that change forever how we experience life and the world.  ~ John Milton

Quotes about encounter

Live your Life

If some longing goes unmet, don't be astonished.  We call that life.  ~ Anna Freud

Longing and desire go further than instant satisfaction.  That's human nature.  ~ Anna Sui

All lovers live by longing and endure; summon a vision and declare it pure.  ~ Theodore Roethke

My library is an archive of longings.  ~ Susan Sontag

So come to the pond, or the river of your imagination, or the harbor of your longing, and put your lips to the world.  And live your life.  ~ Mary Oliver

Quotes about longing

Your Own Resolution

I couldn't wait for success, so I went on without it.  ~ Jonathan Winters

Success is not final,
failure is not fatal;
it is the courage
to continue that counts.  ~ Winston Churchill

The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary.  ~ Donald Kendall

Success is the sum of small efforts repeated day and day out.  ~ Robert Collier

Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any one thing.  ~ Abraham Lincoln

Quotes about success

Reveals the Human Spirit

If you never budge, don't expect a push.  ~ Malcolm S. Forbes

Decision is a risk rooted in the courage of being free.  ~ Paul Tillich

Life is inherently risky.  There is only one big risk you should avoid at all costs, and that is the risk of doing nothing.  ~ Denis Waitley

Then the time came when the risk it took to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.
  Anais Nin

Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experience that reveals the human spirit.  ~ e e cummings

Quotes about risk taking

Fraternity of Strangers

The more I traveled the more I realized that fear makes strangers of people who should be friends.  ~ Shirley Maclaine

If a man be gracious and courteous to strangers, it shows that he is a citizen of the world.  ~ Francis Bacon

There are no strangers here, only friends you haven't yet met.  ~  William Butler Yeats

I am a stranger in a strange land.   ~ Carson McCullers 

Great perils have this beauty, that they bring to light the fraternity of strangers.  ~ Victor Hugo

Quotes about strangers

What We Do Today

We are made wise not by the recollection of our past but by the responsibility for our future.  ~ George Bernard Shaw

Call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call it a family.  Whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one.  ~ Jane Howard

Do more than belong: participate.
Do more that care: help.
Do more than believe: practice.
Do more than be fair: be kind.
Do more than forgive: forget.
Do more than dream: work.  ~ William Arthur Ward

The greatest ability is dependability. ~ Robert Jones

What we do today, right now, will have an accumulated effect on all our tomorrows.  ~ Alexandra Stoddard

Great Discoveries

The world is always open waiting to be discovered.  ~ Dejan Stojanovic

If I have ever made any valuable discoveries, it has been owing more to patient attention, than to any other talent.   ~Isaac Newton

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.   ~Marcel Proust

The greatest discovery of all time is that a person can change his future by merely changing his attitude.  ~ Oprah Winfrey 

By mutual confidence and mutual aid – great deeds are done, and great discoveries made.   ~Homer

Quotes about discovery 

An Appeal

Dear Readers,

(Cheers to good quotes.)

Greetings to all who have stumbled upon this blog in one way or another over the last five years.  

Many of you know that this blog has been an enriching hobby for me, and I appreciate any interest that you have shown.  

If you enjoy this blog or find it meaningful in any way,  I wonder if you would consider:

-sharing or recommending quoteflections or any of my posts to others through email?

-'liking' quoteflections now on Facebook?  Here I provide regular updates.

-following quoteflections on Twitter?  Here I provide frequent submissions.

-following  365 Quote Quest?  Here I provide reflective questions for each of my regular posts from quoteflections.   Consider them meditation nuggets. 

-visit my Author Central page at Amazon where I have published four books.  (By the way, I enjoy a miniscule royalty stream; my reward is the daily posting.)

I welcome emails if you wish to provide some feedback.  Thanks to all who may glean some inspiration from this blog....'celebrating life with enduring quotes.'

To Bright Unclouded Day

The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up.  ~ Mark Twain

If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.  ~ J. R. R. Tolkien

There is no investment which you can make which will pay you so well as the effort to scatter sunshine and good cheer in your establishment.  ~ Orison Swett Marden

A poet is a nightingale, who sits in darkness and sings to cheer its own solitude with sweet sounds.  ~ Percy Bysshe Schelley

The best book, like the best speech, will do it all- make us laugh, think, cry and cheer- preferably in that order.  ~ Madeleine Albright

And from the midst of cheerless gloom
I passed to bright unclouded day.  ~ Emily Bronte

Quotes about cheer

Completing the Circle

What we hope ever to do with ease, we must learn first to do with diligence.  ~ Samuel Johnson

Learning is not attained by chance, it must be sought for with ardor and diligence.  ~ Abigail Adams

There is nothing which persevering effort and unceasing and diligent care cannot accomplish.  ~ Seneca

Persevere in virtue and diligence.  ~ Plautus

The seven factors of awakening are mindfulness, investigation of phenomenon, diligence, joy, ease, concentration, and letting go.  ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

Completing the circle is both philosophical and tactical- there is a growing sense of mastery that comes with practice, diligence, and experience.  ~ Eric Mann 

Quotes about diligence 

The Capacity to Receive

Most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted.  ~ Aldous Huxley

Men are wise in proportion, not to their experience, but to their capacity for experience.  ~ George Bernard Shaw

We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive.  ~ Martin Luther King Jr.

Everything comes to us that belongs to us if we create the capacity to receive it.  ~ Rabindranath Tagore

I believe that the measure of my soul is my capacity to love imperfect people.  ~ Joseph Grenny

Quotes about capacity

Own the Vision

Dreams are extremely important.  You can't do it unless you can imagine it.  ~ George Lucas

Vision animates, inspires, transforms purpose into action.  ~ Warren Bennis

The best vision is insight.  ~ Malcolm Forbes

Vision is the art of seeing things invisible. ~ Jonathan Swift

Good business leaders create a vision, articulate the vision, passionately own the vision, and relentlessly drive it to completion.  ~ Jack Welsh

Where there is no vision the people perish.  ~ Proverbs 29:18

Quotes about vision

The Seed of Potential

Everyone has been made for some particular work, and the desire for that work has been put in every human heart.  ~ Rumi

All men want something to do, or rather something to be.  ~ Henry David Thoreau

As long as you feel inspired, your life is being well spent.  ~ Hugh McLeod

May we serve with much fire, much heart, much desire, and much prayer.  ~ Ronna Detrick

Desire is the seed of potential.  ~ Alaina Odessa

Quotes about desire, accomplishment

Humanity Matters More

It is not our differences that divide us.  It is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences.  ~ Andre Lorde

Strength lies in differences, not similarities.  ~ Stephen Covey

Share our similarities, celebrate our differences.  ~ M. Scott Peck

Differences are not intended to separate and alienate.  We are different in order to realize our need of one another.  ~ Desmond Tutu

We all live under the same sky, but we all don't have the same horizon.  ~ Konrad Adenauer

We all do better when we work together.  Our differences do matter, but our common humanity matters more.  ~ Bill Clinton

Quotes about differences

Dreams of a Shadow

Learn what you are and be such.

The best of healers is good cheer.

The test of any man lies in action.

People are the dreams of a shadow.

The days that are still to come are the wisest witnesses.

Quotes by Pindar, Greek poet, 522-443 BC