Experience is not what happens to you. It is what you do with what happens to you.
 — Aldous Huxley

Studies show that 85 percent of what we learn about the world around us comes to us through the eyes. Your number one visual aid is you … and you never get a second chance to make a first impression.

No decision is forever.

Nobody should think they can just coast through life on the basis of gifts that they have nothing to do with in the first place. You have to pay your dues and do your homework.
 — Steve Allen

Snowflakes are one of the nature's most fragile things, but just look at what they can do when they stick together.
 — Vesta Kelly

I have always found, when I was worrying, that the best thing to do was put my mind upon something, work hard, and forget what was troubling me.
 — Thomas Edison

Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door shall be opened to you.
 — Matthew 7:8

Change is both inevitable and unpredictable, as I should know after all my years. Tomorrow is now.
 — Grandma Moses

When you have completed 95% of your journey, you are halfway there.
 — Japanese Proverb

One who asks is a fool for five minutes, but one who does not ask is a fool forever.
 — Chinese Proverb

When the grass looks greener on the other side of the fence, it may be that they take better care of it.
 — Sam Erskine

Well done is much better than well said.
 — Benjamin Franklin

You get the best out of others when you give the best of yourself.
 — Harry Firestone
In most cases, one way to increase your chances of getting something is to ask for it.
 — Ashleigh Brilliant

The young do not know enough to be prudent, and therefore they attempt the impossible—and achieve it, generation after generation.
 — Pearl S. Buck

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
 — T. S. Eliot

When I interview a job applicant, I am first interested in how he presents himself. How does he look; how is he dressed; what does he say; how does he answer my questions?
 — Franklin Murphy, chair, Times-Mirror

I'm turned off by people who haven't done their homework.
 — Donald Kendall, chair, PepsiCo

If football taught me anything about business, it is that you win the game one play at a time.
 — Fran Tarkenton

Part of being a winner is knowing when enough is enough. Sometimes you have to give up the fight and walk away and move on to something that's more productive.
 — Donald Trump

Hope is a wonderful thing. One little nibble keeps a person fishing the entire day. The beginning of a lifelong romance is falling in love with yourself.
 — Jean Harlow

The lesson that most of us on this voyage never learn, but can never quite forget, is that to win is sometimes to lose.
 — John Wooden
There is no man living who isn't capable of doing more than he thinks he can do.
 — Henry Ford

And the trouble is, if you don't risk anything, you risk even more.
 — Erica Jung

Tomorrow is often the busiest time of the year.
 — Spanish Proverb

I Am a Winner
… because I think like a winner, prepare like a winner, and perform like a winner.
… because I set high but attainable goals, work toward those goals with determination and persistence, and never stop until I reach them.
… because I am strong enough to say "no!" to those things that would make me less than my best, and to say "yes!" to the challenges and opportunities that will make me grow and improve my life.
… because total commitment is my constant companion, and personal integrity is my lifetime mentor.
… because I am learning to avoid the tempting shortcuts that can lead to disappointment, and the unhealthy habits that could result in defeat.
… because I have a well-earned confidence in myself, a high regard for my teammates and co-workers, and a healthy respect for those in authority over me.
… because I have learned to accept criticism, not as a threat, but as an opportunity to examine my attitudes and to improve my skills.
… because I persevere in the midst of obstacles and fight on in the face of defeat.
… because I am made in the image and likeness of my Creator, who gave me a burning desire, a measure of talent, and a strong faith to attempt the difficult and to overcome the seemingly impossible.
… because of my enthusiasm for life, my enjoyment of the present, and my trust in the future.

 — William Arthur Ward

There are risks and costs to a program of action. But they are far less than the long-range risks and costs of comfortable inaction.
 — John F. Kennedy

You can measure opportunity with the same yardstick that measures the risk involved. They go together.
 — Earl Nightingale

What is success
To laugh often and much;
To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children;
To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends;
To appreciate beauty;
To find the best in others;
To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child,
a garden patch or a redeemed social condition;
To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived;
That is to have succeeded.
 — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Don't let making a living prevent you from making a life.
 — John Wooden

What is tragic in life is not that a man dies, but what dies in a man while he lives.
 — Albert Schweitzer

You can't change the major rule that death is the price of life, but there is a particularly human capacity to make choices about how to use that life.
 — Marie Ponsot
I am responsible for everything I am, and everything I am not.
 — Ziggy

The unexamined life is not worth living.
 — Socrates

My life is my message.
 — Gandhi

If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything; it is open to everything. In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities.
 — Shunryll Suzuki

… and all knowledge is vain save when there is work, and all work is empty save when there is love;
and when you work with love, you bind yourself to yourself, and to one another, and to God.
It is to weave the cloth with threads drawn from your heart, even as if your beloved were to wear that cloth.
It is to build a house with affection, even as if your beloved were to dwell in that house.
It is to sow seeds with tenderness and reap the harvest with joy, even as if your beloved were to eat the fruit …
Work is love made visible.
 — Kahlil Gibran

Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.
 — Thomas Edison
Reasons don't count.
 — Dr. Robert Anthony

Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly.
 — Jean Cocteau
Jockey Eddie Arcaro lost his first 45 races. Madame Curie "failed" hundreds of times en route to discovering radium. Thomas Edison made 3,000 mistakes on the way to inventing the electric light. Clearly, you will not be remembered for the number of times you fail, but for the number of times you succeed.

Whether you think you can, or you think you can't … you're right.
 — Henry Ford

Some of your hurts you have cured & the sharpest you still have survived, but what torments of grief you've endured from evils that never arrived!
 — Ralph Waldo Emerson

When you believe with feeling, you become the total sum of your reality.
 — Ursula Bacon
The wordenthusiasm is based on a Greek word that means, roughly, to be possessed by a god. It is the easiest thing in the world to determine precisely how much a person loves and respects himself. Simply watch how that person loves and respects others. Scripture urges us to love our neighbors as ourselves—and it is interesting to note that we always do.

Attitudes are habits of thinking. Remember: First, you form your habits, then they form you.
Practice adding value to yourself. Conduct a daily interview with yourself. Ask, "What can I do to make myself more valuable today?" Visualize yourself not as you are, but as you can be. Specific ways for attaining your potential value will suggest themselves.

That which you think of yourself will determine your fate.
 — Henry David Thoreau

No one makes another feel inferior without consent.
 — Eleanor Roosevelt

Confidence is not trying the knob after you've locked the door.
 — William McFee

You always pass failure on the way to success.
 — Mickey Rooney

To achieve all that is dreamed, one must think of himself as greater than he is.
 — Goethe

No one holds a good opinion of a person who holds a low opinion of his own.
 — Anthony Trollop

If you think nobody cares if you're alive, try missing a couple of car payments.
 — Bennett Cerf

It takes seventeen muscles to smile and forty-three to frown.
 — Anonymous

If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for.
 — Matthew 21:22

As long as you keep a person down, some part of you has to be down there too; so it means you cannot soar as you otherwise might.
 — Marian Anderson

If you see in any given situation only what everybody else can see, you can be said to be so much a representative of your culture that you are a victim of it.
 — S. I. Hayakawa

To dare is to lose one's footing momentarily. To not dare is to lose oneself.
 — Søren Kierkegaard

Only those who dare to fail greatly ever achieve greatly.
 — Robert Kennedy

When people believe in themselves, it is amazing what they can accomplish.
 — Sam Walton


We must be the change we wish to see in the world.
 — Gandhi

This is the true joy in life, being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.

Each path is only one of a million paths. Therefore, you must always keep in mind that a path is only a path. If you feel that you must not follow it, you must not follow it under any circumstances. Any path is only a path. There is no affront to yourself or others in dropping it if that is what your heart tells you to do. But your decision to keep on the path or to leave it must be free of fear or ambition. I warn you! Look at every path closely and deliberately. Try it as many times as you think necessary. Then ask yourself, and yourself alone, one question … It is this … Does this path have a heart? All paths are the same. They lead nowhere. They are paths going through the brush or into the brush. Does this path have a heart is the only question. If it does, then the path is good. If it doesn't, it is of no use. Both paths lead nowhere, but one has a heart and the other doesn't. One makes for a joyful journey; as long as you follow it you will be one with it. The other will make you curse your life. One makes you strong, the other weakens you.
 — Carlos Castaneda

Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with important matters.
 — Albert Einstein

Whatever you dream, you can begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.
 — Goethe

Be what you is, not what you ain't, 'cause if you ain't what you is, you is what you ain't.
 — Luther L. Price

I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community, and as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can.

I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no 'brief candle' to me. It is a sort of splendid torch that I have got hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.
 — George Bernard Shaw

Every time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope … and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy …those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.
 — Robert F. Kennedy

If there is right in the soul,
There will be beauty in the person.
If there is beauty in the person,
There will be harmony in the home.
If there is harmony in the home,
There will be order in the nation.
If there is order in the nation,
There will be peace in the world.
 — Lao Tze

The Tragedy of Life:
Commitments undefined
Convictions undeclared
And Service unfulfilled
 — Ernest Boyer

We must start with ganas (desire).
 — H. Escalante

He who has a why can endure any how.
 — Nietzsche

When you are inspired by some great purpose, some extraordinary project, all your thoughts break their bounds: Your mind transcends limitations, your consciousness expands in every direction, and you find yourself in a new, great, and wonderful world. Dormant forces, faculties, and talents become alive, and you discover yourself to be a greater person by far than you ever dreamed yourself to be.
 — Patanjali


The animals were happy as they had never conceived it possible to be. Every mouthful of food was an acute positive pleasure, now that it was truly their own food, produced by themselves and for themselves, not doled out to them by a grudging master.
Animal Farm

"You're gonna need a bigger boat."
Jaws (1975)