My Favorite Quotations

SUCCESS
Ralph Waldo Emerson

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.

"We are all faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as unsolvable problems."

-- John W. Gardner

"When written in Chinese, the word 'crisis' is composed of two characters. One represents danger and the other represents opportunity."
John F. Kennedy

"Learn from the mistakes of others. You can't live long enough to make them all yourself."
-- Eleanor Roosevelt

Many days are challenges of one sort or another. These next little quotes never fail to perk me up and keep me going. I hope they speak to you, as well.

"I will not let past failures haunt me. Even though my life is scarred with mistakes, I refuse to rummage through my trash heap of failures. I will admit them. I will correct them. I will press on. Victoriously. No failure is fatal. It's OK to stumble . . . I will get up. It's OK to fail . . . I will rise again. Today I will make a difference."
(Max Lucado)

"The cautious seldom err."
(Confucious)

"I -think-I-can, I-think-I-can, I-think-I-can..."
(The Little Engine That Could)

This ancient proverb is simple but profound.

"Before enlightenment - chop wood, carry water.
After enlightenment - chop wood, carry water."

There are people who put their dreams in a little box and say, 'Yes, I've got dreams, of course I've got dreams.' Then they put the box away and bring it out once in awhile to look in it, and yep, they're still there.

These are great dreams, but they never even get out of the box. It takes an uncommon amount of guts to put your dreams on the line, to hold them up and say, 'How good or how bad am I?' That's where courage comes in."

-- Erma Bombeck

"Yes, risk taking is inherently failure-prone.
Otherwise, it would be called sure-thing-taking."
Tim McMahon

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"The thing we call "failure" is not the falling down, but the staying down. Mary Pickford

"Nothing is permanent in this wicked world - not even our troubles."
Charlie Chaplin (1889 - 1977)

Really, really read this next one - and think about it.

And this next quote about relaxation is probably my favorite.

"Sometimes I sits and thinks, and sometimes I just sits. " Satchel Paige (1906 - 1982)

"People take different roads seeking fulfillment and happiness. Just because they're not on your road doesn't mean they've gotten lost."
H. Jackson Brown

(As a fairly opinionated person (at times) it's important for me to remember this...)

"May the holes in your net be no larger than the fish in it." An Old Irish Blessing

I tend to agree more with Dave Barry who says,

"Fishing is boring, unless you catch an actual fish, and then it is disgusting."

And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice cold in the snow,
stood puzzling and puzzling,
how could it be so?
It came without ribbons.
It came without tags.
It came without packages, boxes or bags.
And he puzzled and puzzled
'till his puzzler was sore.
Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before.
"What if Christmas", he thought, "doesn't come from a store.
What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more."

Dr. Seuss

"Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is a nobler art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of nonessentials."
Lin Yutang

"Sometimes, if you stand on the bottom rail of a bridge
and lean over to watch the river slipping slowly away beneath you,
you will suddenly know everything there is to be known."
A. A. Milne, Pooh's Little Instruction Book

"Once we give up searching for approval, we often find it easier to earn respect."
(Gloria Steinem)

The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself."
(Montaigne)

"Camping is nature's way of promoting the motel business."

"It always rains on tents. Rainstorms will travel thousands of miles, against prevailing winds for the opportunity to rain on a tent."

"The ultimate camping trip was the Lewis and Clark expedition."

Peace: It does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble or hard work. It means to be in the midst of those things and still be calm in your heart."

"What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals."
(Zig Ziglar)

"Don't say you don't have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein."

-- H. Jackson Brown

"Even Noah got no salary for the first six months partly on account of the weather and partly because he was learning navigation."
(Mark Twain)