Quotes to inspire and reflect

People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don’t believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can’t find them, make them.

Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in, forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day, begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.

Let us become the change we seek in this world.

To be wronged is nothing unless you continue to remember it.

How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.

Have confidence that you can draw the best, not the worst, to yourself.

I find it fascinating that most people plan their vacations with better care than they plan their lives. Perhaps that is because escape is easier than change.

The mind ought sometimes to be diverted, that it may return the better to thinking.

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor, catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream.

The general tendency of things throughout the world is to render mediocrity the ascendant power among mankind.

Value is not intrinsic; it is not in things. It is within us; it is the way in which man reacts to the conditions of his environment.

Wise people, even though all laws were abolished, would still lead the same life.

Show me the person you honor, for I know better by that the kind of person you are. For you show me what your idea of humanity is.

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

The actions of men are the best interpreters of their thoughts.

For everything you have missed, you have gained something else; and for everything you gain, you lose something else.

A human being feels able and competent only so long as he is permitted to contribute as much as, or more, than he has contributed to him.

Life can only be understood backwards…But it must be lived forwards.

To avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing, be nothing.

Confidence....thrives only on honesty, on honor, on the sacredness of obligations, on faithful protection and on unselfish performance. Without them, it cannot live.

In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: It goes on.

We cannot put off living until we’re ready. Life is fired at us point blank.

If you hear a voice within you say you cannot paint, then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.

In life as in a football game, the principle to follow is: Hit the line hard.

It is only through work and strife that either nation or individual moves on to greatness. The great man is always the man of mighty effort, and usually the man whom grinding need has trained to mighty effort.

The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.

Character and personal force are the only investments that are worth anything.

We are still masters of our fate. We are still captains of our souls.

We understand why children are afraid of the darkness, but why are men afraid of the light?

Diligence is the mother of good luck.

Consult not your fears but your hopes and your dreams. Think not about your frustrations, but about your unfulfilled potential. Concern yourself not with what you tried and failed in, but with what it is still possible for you to do.

Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.

Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor souls who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.

Without self-confidence we are as babes in the cradles. And how can we generate this imponderable quality, which is yet so invaluable most quickly? By thinking that other people are inferior to oneself.

The three great essentials to achieving anything worthwhile are; first, hard work, second, stick-to-it-iveness, and third, common sense.

Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.

We all have to take defeats in life.

A man who doesn't dream is like a man who doesn't sweat: he stores up a lot of poison.

Freedom is the right to question and change the established way of doing things.

Nothing is permanent but change.

The actual tragedies of life bear no relation to one's preconceived ideas. In the event, one is always bewildered by their simplicity, their grandeur of design, and by that element of the bizarre which seems inherent in them.

There are nights when the wolves are silent and only the moon howls.

Facts are the enemy of truth.

I don't have hobbies; hobbies cost money. Interests are quite free.

Silence is golden when you can't think of a good answer.

Knowledge is power.

Nothing is more simple than greatness; indeed, to be simple is to be great.

To talk well and eloquently is a very great art, but that an equally great one is to know the right moment to stop.