A Fire from Within

May every sunrise hold more promise, and every sunset hold more peace.  ~ blessing

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

The greatest motivational act one person can do for another is to listen. ~Roy E. Moody

The simple act of paying attention can take you a long way. ~Keanu Reeves

Live your truth. Express your love. Share your enthusiasm. Take action towards your dreams. Walk your talk. Dance and sing to your music. Embrace your blessings. Make today worth remembering. ~ Steve Maraboli

Quotes about motivation

Building Us

Fear less, hope more; eat less, chew more; whine less, breathe more; talk less, say more; love more, and all good things will be yours.  ~ Swedish proverb

Good things happen to those who hustle.  ~ Anais Nin

Good order is the foundation of all good things.  ~ Edmund Burke

The best way to not feel hopeless is to get up and do something. Don’t wait for good things to happen to you. If you go out and make some good things happen, you will fill the world with hope, you will fill yourself with hope.  ~ Barack Obama

Whatever good things we build, end up building us.  ~ Jim Rohn

Quotes about good things

Swerve from your Path

Always meet petulance with gentleness and perverseness with kindness. A gentle hand can lead even an elephant by a hair. Reply to thine enemy with gentleness.  ~Zoroaster

As perfume to the flower, so is kindness to speech. ~Katherine Francke

The best portion of a good person's life is the little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love. ~William Wordsworth

A gentle word, a kind look, a good-natured smile can work wonders and accomplish miracles. ~William Hazlitt

If you stop to be kind, you must swerve often from your path. ~Mary Webb

Quotes about kindness

Go Along

If you want to get along, go along. ~ Sam Rayburn

The most important single ingredient in the formula of success is knowing how to get along with people. ~ Theodore Roosevelt

We rise by lifting others.  ~ Robert Ingersoll

A peron's a person no matter how small. ~ Dr. Seuss

People fail to get along because they fear each other; they fear each other because they don’t know each other; they don’t know each other because they have not communicated with each other. ~ Martin Luther King

Quotes about getting along

Sprinkled around Us

There are no seven wonders of the world in the eyes of a child. There are seven million.  ~Walt Streightiff

Be aware of wonder. Live a balanced life; learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.  ~Robert Fulghum

The grand show is eternal. It is always sunrise somewhere; the dew is never dried all at once; a shower is forever falling; vapor is ever rising. Eternal sunrise, eternal dawn and gloaming, on sea and continents and islands, each in its turn, as the round earth rolls.  ~John Muir

Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn, whatever state I may be in, therein to be content.  ~Helen Keller

In every single moment there is significance. Wonder is sprinkled all around us.  ~Flavia Weedn

Quotes about wonder

Strong to Live

Outside show is a poor substitute for inner worth. ~Aesop

Character develops itself in the stream of life. ~Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Wealth stays with us a little moment if at all: only our characters are steadfast, not our gold. ~Euripides

Everyone tries to define this thing called Character. It's not hard. Character is doing what's right when nobody's looking. ~J.C. Watts

Reputation is what you have when you come to a new community; character is what you have when you go away. ~William Hersey Davis

Character is higher than intellect. A great soul will be strong to live as well as think. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

The law of the harvest is to reap more than you sow. Sow an act...reap a habit. Sow a habit ... reap a character. Sow a character ... reap a destiny. ~George D. Boardman

Quotes about character

Give It Away

The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience. ~ Eleanor Roosevelt

The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Many persons have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose. ~ Helen Keller

The purpose of life is to contribute in some way to making things better. ~ Robert F. Kennedy

The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away. ~ Pablo Picasso

Quotes about purpose in life

Your Motivation

Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery.  And today?  Today is a gift.  That's why we call it the present.  ~ B. Olatunji

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. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Happiness is not something you postpone for the future; it is something you design for the present.  ~ Jim Rohn

The past, the present, and the future walked into a bar.  It was tense.  ~ unknown

The past is your lesson.  The present is your gift.  The future is your motivation.  ~ unknown

Quotes about past, present, and future.

The Ultimate Sophistication

For every minute spent in organizing, an hour is earned. ~ Benjamin Franklin

Good order is the foundation of all things. ~ Edmund Burke

Organize; don't agonize. ~ Nancy Pelosi

Organizing is what you do before you do something, so that when you do it, it is not all mixed up. ~ A.A. Milne

The Zen of Organizing philosophy refers to the creation of a calm, peace-filled, and joyous environment.  ~ Regina Leeds

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. ~ Leonardo DaVinci

Quotes about organizing

Kindle a Light

Man- a being in search of meaning.  ~ Plato

Every human being is a problem in search of a solution.  ~ Ashley Montagu

Man is the only animal for who his own existence is a problem which he has to solve.   ~ Erich Fromm

Man is the only creature who refuses to be what he is.   ~ Albert Camus

As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.  ~Carl Jung

Quotes about humanity

Something Imperfect

Perfection is the death of possibilities.  ~ Mary Kay Hamm

Perfection is highly overrated. Real learning and growth come with imperfection.  ~ Felicia Watlington

I’m careful not to confuse excellence with perfection. Excellence I can strive for; perfection is God’s business. ~ Michael J. Fox

The maxim ‘Nothing but perfection’ may be spelled ‘Paralysis.’  ~ Winston Churchill

Better to do something imperfectly than to do nothing flawlessly.  ~ Robert H. Schuller 

Quotes  about perfection

Between You and Life

Clutter-clearing is modern day alchemy.   ~ Denise Linn

Bottom line is, if you do not use it or need it, it's clutter, and it needs to go.   ~Charisse Ward

Out of clutter, find simplicity. From discord, find harmony.   ~ Albert Einstein

Clutter is not just the stuff on your floor- it's anything that stands between you and the life you want to be living.   ~ Peter Walsh

When you have cleared all of your clutter, you can be of greater service to those around you.   ~Michael B. Kitson

Quotes about clutter

In the Making

You hit home runs not by chance but by preparation. ~ Roger Maris

Before anything else, preparation is the key to success. ~ Alexander Graham Bell

The will to win is worthless if you do not have the will to prepare.  ~Thane Yost

None of us becomes something overnight. The preparations have been in the making for a lifetime. ~ Gail Godwin

The first forty years of life give us the text; the next thirty supply the commentary on it. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer

Quotes about preparation

The Birds of Hope

Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come.  ~Anne Lamott

Hope is that thing with feathers that perches in the soul and sings the tune without the words and never stops… at all.   ~ Emily Dickinson

Grace is all around us, not just in the hopeful future but in the miracle of now.  ~Richard Paul Evans

Hope is like a road in the country; there was never a road, but when many people walk on it, the road comes into existence.  ~Lin Yutang

The birds of hope are everywhere; listen to them sing.  ~Terri Guillemets

Quotes about hope

Far more Potent

True strength lies in gentleness.  ~ Irish proverb

Only the weak are cruel. Gentleness can only be expected from the strong.  ~ Leo Buscaglia

I choose gentleness... Nothing is won by force. I choose to be gentle. If I raise my voice may it be only in praise. If I clench my fist, may it be only in prayer. If I make a demand, may it be only of myself.  ~ Max Lucado

In a gentle way you can shake the world.  ~ Gandhi

Oh! that gentleness! how far more potent is it than force!   ~ Charlotte Bronte

Quotes about gentleness

Make Each Day Count

Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.  ~ Alexander Pope

Try not to have any expectations.  In this way everything will open to you.  ~ unknown

High expectations are the key to everything.  ~ Sam Walton

The secret of happiness is low expectations.  ~ Barry Schwartz

Our environment, the world in which we live and work, is a mirror of our attitudes and expectations.  ~ Earl Nightingale

Make each day count by setting specific goals to succeed, then putting forth every effort to succeed your own expectations.  ~ Les Brown

Quotes about expectations

A Shady Tree

The world belongs to the Enthusiast who keeps cool.  ~ William Mcfee

Keep cool; anger is not an argument.  ~ Daniel Webster

Remain calm in every situation because peace equals power.  ~ Joyce Meyer

There is a calmness to a life lived in gratitude, a quiet joy.  ~ Ralph H. Blum

A person of calm is like a shady tree.  People who need shelter come to it.  ~ Toba Beta

Quotes  about calmness

On My Way

Be not afraid of going slowly; be afraid only of standing still.  ~ Chinese proverb

I am a slow walker, but I never walk back.  ~ Abraham Lincoln

I don't know where I am going, but I am on my way.   ~ Carl Sandburg

If it is to be,
It is up to me.  ~ unknown

If there is no struggle, there is no progress.  ~ Frederick Douglass

Behold the turtle; he makes progress only when he sticks his neck out.  ~ James Bryant Conant

Quotes about personal progress

Grasp Life

The journey is the reward.   ~ Chinese proverb

The end is not the reward; the path you take, the emotions that course through you as you grasp life - that is the reward.   ~ Jamie Magee

The reward is in the risk.  ~ Rachel Cohn

The reward of a thing well done is to have done it.   ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

We will receive not what we idly wish for but what we justly earn. Our rewards will always be in exact proportion to our service.  ~Earl Nightingale

Quotes about rewards

More Fulfilling

This above all:
To thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.   ~Hamlet, Shakespeare

The authentic self is soul made visible.   ~Sarah Ban Breathnach

Best keep yourself clean and bright; you are the window through which you see the world.  ~George Bernard Shaw

Only the truth of who you are, if realized, will set you free.   ~Eckhart Tolle

I can be a better me than anyone can.   ~ Diana Ross

Being right doesn't make us safe or happy. It is more fulfilling to aim for authenticity and transparency.   ~ Donna M. Thomas

Quotes about genuineness, authenticity

Why Not Me?

Tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly;
Man got to sit and wonder 'why, why, why?'
Tiger got to sleep, bird got to land;
Man got to tell himself he understand.  ~Kurt Vonnegut

I don't know why we are here, but I'm pretty sure that it is not in order to enjoy ourselves.   ~Ludwig Wittgenstein

He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.  ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

In terms of doing things I take a fairly scientific approach to why things happen and how they happen. I don't know if there's a god or not...   ~Bill Gates

There is always the question why
And there is always life,
Which doesn't need an answer.   ~Dejan Stojanovic

For true success ask yourself these four questions: Why? Why not? Why not me? Why not now?   ~ James Allen

Quotes about why

The Furnace of Achievement

Reach high, for stars lie hidden in your soul. Dream deep, for every dream precedes the goal. ~Pamela Vaull Starr

A dream is just a dream.  A goal is a dream with a plan and a deadline.  ~ Harvey Mackay

Goals are the fuel in the furnace of achievement.  ~ Brian Tracey

Most people would succeed in small things if they were not troubled with great ambitions.  ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Arriving at one goal is the starting point to another.  ~ John Dewey

Quotes about reaching goals

White Heat

Sometimes there's not a better way. Sometimes there's only the hard way.   ~ Mary E. Pearson

No matter how much falls on us, we keep plowing ahead. That's the only way to keep the roads clear.   ~ Greg Kincaid

Stamina is the force that drives the drumming; it's not really a sprint.   ~ Neal Peart

A clay pot sitting in the sun will always be a clay pot. It has to go through the white heat of the furnace to become porcelain.  ~ Mildred Stouven

What destiny sends, bear! Whoever perseveres will be crowned.  ~ Johann Gottfried Herder

Endurance is not just the ability to bear a hard thing, but to turn it into glory.   ~ William Barclay

Quotes about endurance, stamina

The Love of Life

It's always the challenge of the future, the feeling of excitement, what drives me.  ~ Yoshihisa Tabuchi

Flaming enthusiasm, backed up by horse sense and persistence, is the quality that most frequently makes for success.  ~ Dale Carnegie

Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.  ~ Ralph Waldo  Emerson

It's faith in something and enthusiasm for something that makes a life.  ~ Oliver Wendell Holmes

The love of life is necessary to the vigorous prosecution of any undertaking.  ~ Samuel Johnson

Quotes about enthusiasm for life

Travelling toward Light

I thought the most beautiful thing in the world must be shadow.  ~ Sylvia Plath

Some people seem to get all sunshine, and some all shadow…  ~ Louisa May Alcott

There is strong shadow where there is much light.  ~ Goethe

Fancies are like shadows...you can't cage them, they're such wayward, dancing things.  ~ L. M. Montgomery

When walking through the valley of shadows, remember a shadow is cast by a Light.  ~ Austin O'Malley

I wear my shadows where they're harder to see, but they follow me everywhere. I guess that should tell me I'm travelling toward light.  ~ Bruce Cockburn

Quotes about shadows

Leave it alone

I learned never to empty the well of my writing, but always to stop when there was still something there in the deep part of the well, and let it refill at night from the springs that fed it.  ~ Ernest Hemingway

The poet is at the disposal of the night. His role is humble, he must clean house and await its due visitation.  ~ Jean Cocteau

One should never impose one’s views on a problem; one should rather study it, and in time a solution will reveal itself.  ~ Albert Einstein

Reverie is when ideas float in our mind without reflection or regard of the understanding.  ~ John Locke

I waited for the idea to consolidate, for the grouping and composition of themes to consolidate and settle themselves in my brain.  ~ Claude Monet

Muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone.  ~ Alan Watts

Quotes about incubation, creativity