SELF-ENRICHMENT QUOTES

The moment the slave resolves that he will no longer be a slave, his fetters fall. He frees himself and shows the way to others. Freedom and slavery are mental states.

-Mohandis K. Gandhi


Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.

-George Bernard Shaw


The first thing each morning, and the last thing each night, suggest to yourself specific ideas that you wish to embody in your character and personality. Address such suggestions to yourself, silently or aloud, until they are deeply impressed upon your mind.

-Grenville Kleiser


Life is made up of little things. It is very rarely that an occasion is offered for doing a great deal at once. True greatness consists in being great in little things.

-Charles Simmons


Do not attempt to do a thing unless you are sure of yourself, but do not relinquish it simply because someone else is unsure of you.

-Stewart E. White


Take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another.

-Franklin D. Roosevelt


A preoccupation with the future not only prevents us from seeing the present as it is, but often prompts us to rearrange the past.

-Eric Hoffer


Look at a stone cutter hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred-and-first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not the last blow that did it, but all that had gone before.

-Jacob A. Riis


Energy and persistence conquer all things.

-Benjamin Franklin


Success is peace of mind, which is a direct result of knowing that you did your best to become the best that you are capable of becoming.

-John Wooden


When enthusiasm is inspired by reason; controlled by caution; sound in theory; practical in application; reflects confidence; spreads good cheer; raises morale; inspires associates; arouses loyalty; and laughs at adversity, it is beyond price.

-Coleman Cox


A wise person tells the truth one-hundred-percent of the time, while at the same time realizing that telling the truth may at times be personally uncomfortable for ourselves or others.

-Ray Gattavara


Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not, nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not, unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not, the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.

-Calvin Coolidge


Courage is the power to let go of the familiar.

-Raymond Lindquist


A good man would prefer to be defeated than to defeat injustice by evil means.

-Sallust


In today's modern world in which anonymity is available to many, it must be remembered that a person attempting to find the path to wisdom has no fear in accepting responsibility for anything he/she has spoken, written, or done. Hence, there is no need to hide behind or use pen names and/or screen names in a manner that completely shields one's true identity. If one finds the need to hide their thoughts behind a mask, then both the intent and life path are called into question.

-Ray Gattavara


One of the many guideposts on the path to wisdom points out that it isn't enough for an individual to become very skilled or highly knowledgable in a specific area. In addition, one must make an effort throughout life at becoming skilled and knowledgable about as many subjects as possible that affect the human condition.

-Ray Gattavara


The real leader has no need to lead - he is content to point the way.

-Henry Miller


The man who fears no truths has nothing to fear from lies.

-Thomas Jefferson


Decide which is the line of conduct that presents the fewest drawbacks and then follow it out as being the best one, because one never finds anything perfectly pure and unmixed, or exempt from danger.

-Niccolo Machiavelli


The quality of a man's life is in direct proportion to his[or her] commitment to excellence, regardless of his chosen field of endeavor.

-Vince Lombardi


Nothing at all will be attempted if all possible objections must first be overcome.

-Samuel Johnson


Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings.

-Samuel Johnson


The man[or woman] with insight enough to admit his limitations come nearest to perfection.

-Johann von Goethe


Action, not words, are the true criterion of the attachment of friends.

-George Washington


While ethical morality cannot be effectively legislated within most cultures, a good example, via personal behavior, can still be set by anyone interested.

-Ray Gattavara


Associate yourself with men[and women] of good quality if you esteem your reputation, for 'tis better to be alone than to be in bad company.

-George Washington


A man should never be ashamed to own that he has been in the wrong, which is but saying, in other words, that he is wiser today than he was yesterday.

-Alexander Pope


Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.

-Abraham Lincoln


No great man ever complains of want of opportunity.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson


No legacy is so rich as honesty.

-William Shakespeare


Keep your fears to yourself, but share your courage with others.

-Robert Louis Stevenson


Do not wait for extraordinary circumstances to do good; try to use ordinary situations.

-Jean Paul Richter


He[or she] who does not need to lie is proud of not being a liar.

-Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche


Greater fulfillment and freedom of choice in life are open to those who recognize the importance of being willing and prepared to accept the consequences of both their decisions and behavior.

-Ray Gattavara


A good listener is not only popular everywhere, but after a while, he[or she] knows something.

-Wilson Mizner


When we do the best we can, we never know what miracle is wrought in our life, or in the life of another.

-Helen Keller


Always do right. This will gratify some people, and astonish the rest.

-Mark Twain


Maturity begins to grow when you can sense your concern for others outweighing your concern for yourself.

-John MacNaughton


The very first condition of lasting happiness is that a life should be full of purpose, aiming at something outside self.

-Hugh Black


Try not to become a man[or woman] of success, but rather a man of value.

-Albert Einstein


Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.

-James Baldwin


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


It is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust.

-Samuel Johnson


The happiness of your life depends on the quality of your thoughts.

-Marcus Aurelius


The amount of satisfaction you get from life depends largely on your own ingenuity, self-sufficiency, and resourcefulness. People who wait around for life to supply their satisfaction usually find boredom instead.

-Dr. William Menninger


Fair play with others is primarily not blaming them for anything that is wrong with us.

-Eric Hoffer


Any path is only a path, and there is no affront, to oneself or others, in dropping it if that is what your heart tells you.

-Carlos Castaneda


Happiness is produced not so much by great pieces of good fortune that seldom happen, as by little advantages that occur every day.

-Benjamin Franklin


If every day is an awakening, you will never grow old. You will just keep growing.

-Gail Sheely


To accept whatever comes, regardless of the circumstances, is to be unafraid.

-John Cage


If you have not often felt the joy of doing a kind act, you have neglected much, and most of all yourself.

-A. Neilen


The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one.

-Elbert Hubbard


There is something healthy and invigorating about direct action.

-Henry Miller


No man is free who is not master of himself.

-Epictetus


Any man's life will be filled with constant and unexpected encouragement if he makes up his mind to do his level best each day.

-Booker T. Washington


If you make friends with yourself you will never be alone.

-Maxwell Maltz


Many qualities of life are lost to those that develop and adhere to a hasty lifestyle with little or no time devoted to thinking, the exercising of patience, and internal reflection.

-Ray Gattavara


Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.

-Helen Keller


Guard well your spare moments. They are like uncut diamonds. Discard them and their value will never be known. Improve them and they will become the brightest gems in a useful life.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson


Happiness is not a station to arrive at, but a manner of traveling.

-Margaret Lee Runbeck


A man's most valuable trait is a judicious sense of what not to believe.

-Euripides


Not only is the person who asks no questions in life unwise, but the chances are good that he/she doesn't know much either, as asking questions is one of only three ways in which we can learn anything.

-Ray Gattavara


Optimism is essential to achievement and it is also the foundation of courage and of true progress.

-Nicholas Murray Butler


When one is a stranger to oneself then one is estranged from others too.

-Anne Morrow Lindberg


I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble.

-Helen Keller


Self-image sets the boundaries of individual accomplishment.

-Maxwell Maltz


The manner in which it is given is worth more than the gift.

-Pierre Corneille


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

-Samuel Johnson


There is no advancement to him who stands trembling because he cannot see the end from the beginning.

-E.J. Klemme


Inspirations never go in for long engagements; they demand immediate marriage to action.

-Brendan Francis


Long experience has taught me that to be criticized is not always to be wrong.

-Anthony Eden


Firmness of purpose is one of the most necessary sinews of character, and one of the best instruments of success. Without it, genius wastes its efforts in a maze of inconsistencies.

-Lord Chesterfield


To finish the moment, to find the journey's end in every step of the road, to live the greatest number of good hours, is wisdom.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson


Let mankind not squander the natural resources and diversified species of Earth recklessly, less future generations be sadly restricted to looking at pictures in an attempt to visualize what once was.

-Ray Gattavara


You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know when it will be too late.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson


Vigor is contagious, and whatever makes us either think or feel strongly adds to our power and enlarges our field of action.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson


Anyone who proposes to do good must not expect people to roll stones out of his way, but must accept his lot calmly, even if they roll a few more upon it.

-Albert Schweitzer


To be good is noble; but to show others how to be good is nobler and no trouble.

-Mark Twain


We must not...ignore the small daily differences we can make which, over time, add up to big differences that we often cannot foresee.

-Marian Write Edelman


When we are afraid we ought not to occupy ourselves with endeavoring to prove that there is no danger, but in strengthening ourselves to go on in spite of the danger.

-Mark Rutherford


The height of your accomplishments will equal the depth of your convictions.

-William F. Scolavino


The most significant change in a person's life is a change of attitude. Right attitudes produce right actions.

-William J. Johnston


The most effective way to ensure the value of the future is to confront the present courageously and constructively.

-Rollo May


If you haven't the strength to impose your own terms upon life, you must accept the terms life offers you.

-T.S. Eliot


Hope is not a feeling of certainity, that everything ends well. Hope is a feeling that life and work have meaning.

-Vaclev Havel


Courage is the ladder on which all other virtues mount.

-Clare Boothe Luce


Wisdom indicates that it is often best not to make high-impact decisions when one is in a state of anger.

-Ray Gattavara


An optimist is a person who sees a green light everywhere, while the pessimist sees only the red stoplight... The truly wise person is color blind.

-Albert Schweitzer


If you fear making anyone mad, then you ultimately probe for the lowest common denominator of human achievement.

-Jimmy Carter


A friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson


Life is easier than you think; all that is necessary is to accept the impossible, do without the indispensable, and bear the intolerable.

-Kathleen Norris


Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.

-Theodore Roosevelt


It is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.

-Henry David Thoreau


I expect to pass through life but once. If, therefore, there can be any kindness I can show, or any good thing I can do to any fellow human being, let me do it now.

-William Penn


When you make a mistake, don't look back at it long. Take the reason of the thing into your mind, and then look forward. Mistakes are lessons of wisdom. The past cannot be changed. The future is yet in your power.

-Hugh White


Had we lived, I should have had a tale to tell of the hardihood, endurance, and courage of my companions which would have stirred the heart of every Englishman. These rough notes...must tell the tale.

-Robert Falcon Scott


I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious effort.

-Henry David Thoreau


True love is like ghosts, which everybody talks about and few have seen.

-Francois De La Rochefoucauld


A moment's insight is sometimes worth a life's experience.

-Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.


So much has been given to me, I have no time to ponder over that which has been denied.

-Helen Keller


The pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; the optimist, the opportunity in every difficulty.

-L.P. Jacks


Ideas must work through the brains and the arms of good and brave men[and women], or they are no better than dreams.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson


A friend is a present you give to yourself.

-Robert Louis Stevenson


Optimism is an intellectual choice.

-Diana Schneider


Happiness lies not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort.

-Franklin D. Roosevelt


Shallow men believe in luck....Strong men[and women] believe in cause and effect.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson


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

-Helen Keller


A secure individual...knows that the responsibility for anything concerning his life remains with himself - and he accepts that responsibility.

-Harry Browne


If a man has a talent and cannot use it, he has failed. If he has a talent and uses only half of it, he has partly failed. If he has a talent and learns somehow to use the whole of it, he has gloriously succeeded, and won a satisfaction and a triumph few men ever know.

-Thomas Wolfe


To do anything in this world worth doing, we must not stand back shivering and thinking of the cold and danger, but jump in and scramble through as well as we can.

-Sydney Smith


Many people who wonder why they don't amount to more than they do have good stuff in them, and are energetic, persevering, and have ample opportunities. It is all a case of trimming the useless branches and throwing the whole force of power into the development of something that counts.

-Walter J. Johnston


The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them.

-Mark Twain


A happy life consists in tranquility of mind.

-Cicero


Courage is rarely reckless or foolish...courage usually involves a highly realistic estimate of the odds that must be faced.

-Margaret Truman


Truth has no special time of its own. Its hour is now-always.

-Albert Schweitzer


Some people are making such thorough preparation for rainy days that they aren't enjoying today's sunshine.

-William Feather


Whatever you do, you need courage....To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires some of the same courage which a soldier needs.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson


A laugh, to be joyous, must flow from a joyous heart, for without kindness, there can be no true joy.

-Thomas Carlyle


If only every man would make proper use of his strength and do his utmost, he need never regret his limited ability.

-Cicero


Friendship is a strong and habitual inclination in two persons to promote the good and happiness of one another.

-Eustace Budgell


Character is like a tree and reputation like its shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.

-Abraham Lincoln


The applause of a single human being is of great consequence.

-Samuel Johnson


Whatever course you have chosen for yourself, it will not be a chore but an adventure if you bring to it a sense of glory of striving, if your sights are set far above the merely secure and mediocre.

-David Sarnoff


The most considerable difference I note among men is not in their readiness to fall into error, but in their readiness to acknowledge these inevitable lapses.

-Thomas Henry Huxley


The person who makes a success of living is the one who sees his goal steadily and aims for it unswervingly. That is dedication.

-Cecil B. DeMille


It is only by following your deepest instinct that you can lead a rich life.

-Katherine Butler Hathaway


The method of the enterprising is to plan with audacity and execute with vigor.

-Christian Bovee


A loving person lives in a loving world. A hostile person lives in a hostile world: everyone you meet is your mirror.

-Ken Keyes Jr.


We have no more right to consume happiness without producing it than to consume wealth without producing it.

-George Bernard Shaw


My country is the world, and my religion is to do good.

-Thomas Paine


Friendship cannot always be based on length of time known, but sometimes needs to be measured against the depth of impressions left in the shortest periods of time.

-Ray Gattavara


To the man who is afraid everything rustles.

-Sophocles


Wear your learning, like your watch in a private pocket: and do not merely pull it out and strike it, merely to show that you have one.

-Lord Chesterfield


The greater part of our happiness or misery depends on our dispositions, and not our circumstances.

-Martha Washington


You cannot be friends upon any other terms than upon the terms of equality.

-Woodrow Wilson


Rudeness is the weak man's[or woman's] imitation of strength.

-Eric Hoffer


The point...is to dwell upon the brightest parts in every prospect, to call off the thoughts when turning upon disagreeable objects, and strive to be pleased with the present circumstances.

-Abraham Tucker


Real generosity toward the future lies in giving all to the present.

-Albert Camus


However often the thread may be torn out of your hands, you must develop enough patience to wind it up again and again.

-Walter Gropius


Being solitary is being alone well...luxuriously immersed in doings of your own choice, aware of the fullness of your own presence rather than of the absence of others.

-Alice Koller


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

-Helen Keller


There is no wilderness like a life without friends; friendship multiplies blessings and minimizes misfortunes; it is a unique remedy against adversity, and it soothes the soul.

-Baltasar Gracian


Do not lose courage in considering your own imperfections.

-Saint Francis de Sales


Choose an author as you choose a friend.

-Lord Dillon


There is no medicine like hope, no incentive so great, and no tonic so powerful as expectation of something tomorrow.

-Orison Swett Marden


We shall never have friends if we expect to find them without fault.

-Thomas Fuller


No one can really pull you up very high - you lose your grip on the rope. But on your own two feet you can climb mountains.

-Louis Brandeis


Those who are quick to point out another's shortcomings often do so in an effort to conceal their own.

-Ray Gattavara


When life's problems seem overwhelming, look around and see what other people are coping with. You may consider yourself fortunate.

-Ann Landers


To make your children capable of honesty is the beginning of education.

-John Ruskin


We must use time as a tool, not as a couch.

-John F. Kennedy


Every man must at last accept himself for his portion, and learn to do his work with the tools and talents with which he has been endowed.

-Charles A. Hawley


It is a sign of strength, not of weakness, to admit you don't know all the answers.

-John P. Lougbrane


When a friend is in trouble, don't annoy him by asking if there is anything you can do. Think up something appropriate and do it.

-Edgar Watson Howe


Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort.

-Franklin D. Roosevelt


You have reached the pinnacle of success as soon as you become uninterested in money, compliments, or publicity.

-Thomas Wolfe


I always say to myself, what is the most important thing we can think about at this extraordinary moment.

-Francois de La Rochefoucauld


Genius is the ability to reduce the complicated to the simple.

-C.W. Ceram


Happiness is a by-product of helping others.

-Denny Miller


Everyone has his superstitions. One of mine has always been when I started to go anywhere, or to do anything, never to turn back or to stop until the thing intended was accomplished.

-U.S. Grant


Experience is not what happens to a man; it is what a man does with what happens to him.

-Aldous Huxley


Never bend your head. Hold it high. Look the world straight in the eye.

-Helen Keller


In creating, the only hard thing's to begin; a grass-blade's no easier to make than an oak.

-James Russell Lowell


Great hopes make great men.

-LeRoy Douglas


Arriving at one goal is the starting point to another.

-John Dewey


One unexpected, sincere, and well thought out compliment spoken to an individual while he/she is alive is worth far more than all of the eulogies and ceremony delivered at his/her funeral.

-Ray Gattavara


Many are stubborn in pursuit of the path they have chosen, few in pursuit of the goal.

-Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzshe


The world is divided into people who do things and people who get the credit. Try, if you can, to belong to the first class. There's far less competition.

-Dwight Morrow


What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.

-Crowfoot


Perseverance is a great element of success. If you only knock loud enough and long enough at the gate, you are sure to wake up somebody.

-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow