Abraham Lincoln's principle for greatness can be adopted by nearly all. This was his rule: Whatsoever he had to do at all, he put his whole mind into it and held it all there until that was all done. That makes men great almost anywhere.
Russell H. Conwell Treasury of Inspiration
Categories: focus

If you want to be creative, don't try to do something new. Doing something new means not doing what's been done before, and that's a negative impulse. Negative impulses are frustrating. There the opposite of creativity, and they never yield good ideas -- not even in business or technology.
Eva Zeisel "Unit of 1", Fast Company, April 2000
Categories: creativity focus

Anytime we are fully present in the moment we are meditating.
Joan Borysenko Simple Abundance
Categories: focus meditation

Look at every situation as if you were in the future and you were looking back on it.
General Peter Schoomaker "Operation: Leadership" by Eli Cohen and Noel Tichy, Fast Company, September 19999
Categories: perspective focus emotions

'Tis looking downward makes one dizzy.
Robert Browning The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: focus success achievement

Life is a progress from want to want, not from enjoyment to enjoyment.
Samuel Johnson The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: life want joy happiness focus

The difference in men does not lie in the size of their hands, nor in the perfection of their bodies, but in this one sublime ability of concentration: to throw the weight in one blow, to live eternity in an hour.
Elbert Hubbard The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: focus success vision

Instead of comparing our lot with that of those who are more fortunate than we are, we should compare it with the lot of the great majority of our fellow men. It then appears that we are among the privileged.
Helen Keller The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: focus attitude gratitude

It is quite wrong to think of old age as a downward slope. On the contrary, one climbs higher and higher with the advancing years, and that, too, with surprising strides. Brain-work comes as easily to the old as physical exertion to the child. One is moving, it is true, towards the end of life, but that end is now a goal, and not a reef in which the vessel may be dashed.
George Sand Treasury of Women's Quotations
Categories: age aging focus purpose meaning

Relating to the whole of our lives mindfully--to both our inward and our outward experiences--is a profoundly positive and practical alternative to the driven, automatic pilot mode in which we operate so much of the time without even knowing it.
Myla and Jon Kabat-Zinn Everyday Blessings: The Inner Work of Mindful Parenting
Categories: mindfulness focus self-awareness meditation

God is in the details.
Mies van der Rohe The Oxford Dictionary of Phrase, Saying, and Quotation
Categories: focus attention thoroughness excellence

Yesterday ended last night. Every day is a new beginning. Learn the skill of forgetting. And move on.
Norman Vincent Peale Have a Great Day
Categories: past present future focus

How sour sweet music is
When time is broke and no proportions kept!
So it is in the music of men's lives.
William Shakespeare (King Richard II) Bartlett's Familiar Quotations
Categories: balance priorities focus fulfillment

It is common to overlook what is near by keeping the eye fixed on something remote.
Samuel Johnson The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: focus vision happiness present joy

Each action can be the one on which all depends; what is decisive is only the strength and concentration of hallowing with which I do it. To the question of what hd been the most essential matter for his late teacher, a disciple answered, 'Always just what he was engaged in at the moment.'
Martin Buber Thoughts on Leadership
Categories: action focus balance priorities

When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.
Helen Keller The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness opportunity focus change

..we cannot longer afford to throw away even one "unimportant" day by not noticing the wonder of it all. We have to be willing to discover and then appreciate the authentic moments of happiness available to all of us every day.
Sarah Ban Breathnach Simple Abundance
Categories: focus priorities joy happiness wonder awe creation

It's only by forgetting yourself that you draw near to God.
Henry David Thoreau The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: spirituality selflessness god awareness focus

If busyness is an emotional complex, then it's likely that when we are busiest, we are doing least. We can be extremely active without being busy, and busy without accomplishing anything. We may be feverishly engaged in some task and yet not truly focused on the matter at hand. The job may be merely a means to accomplish some other goal: to make money, to impress, or to prove oneself to another. Our busyness may be a way to avoid difficult emotions and thoughts, or we may simply believe that it's important never to waste time.
Thomas Moore The Re-Enchantment of Everyday Life
Categories: busyness productivity focus time

Rather than focusing on things and time, focus on preserving and enhancing relationships and on accomplishing results.
Stephen Covey Daily Reflections for Highly Effective People: Living the Seven Habits
Categories: focus priorities balance success

The knowledge that something remains yet unenjoyed impairs our enjoyment of the good before us.
Samuel Johnson The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: joy life present focus happiness

To gain that which is worth having, it may be necessary to lose everything else.
Bernadette Devlin The New Beacon Book of Quotations by Women
Categories: sacrifice priorities focus vision

Too often in our lives accomplishment and doing overshadow growth and becoming.
Linda Dillow Calm My Anxious Heart : A Woman's Guide to Contentment
Categories: focus priorities personal growth

Since we cannot change reality, let us change the eyes which see reality.
Nikos Kazantzakis Simple Abundance: A Daybook of Comfort and Joy
Categories: choice vision focus potential

...focus on the journey, not the destination. Joy is found not in finishing an activity but in doing it.
Greg Anderson The 22 Non-Negotiable Laws of Wellness
Categories: focus action life joy journey

Would you be young again?
So would not I--
One tear to memory given,
Onward I'd hie.
Caroline Oliphant Treasury of Women's Quotations
Categories: age aging attitude focus growth wisdom

Superfluous branches
We lop away that bearing boughs may live.
William Shakespeare (King Richard II) Bartlett's Familiar Quotations
Categories: growth discipline focus balance priorities

Only one thing has to change for us to know happiness in our lives: where we focus our attention.
Greg Anderson The 22 Non-Negotiable Laws of Wellness
Categories: focus attention happiness wellness life

Many persons wonder why they don't amount to more than they do, have good stuff in them, 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. Johnson The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: success achievement focus goal mission

Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end, an end which was already but too easy to arrive at...
Henry David Thoreau Walden
Categories: focus attention leadership ideas creativity

Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off the goal.
Hannah More Body, Mind and Spirit: Daily Inspiration for Healing and Wholeness
Categories: obstacles challenges difficulties focus goal

More often than not, most of our worries begin to disappear when we analyze them--because it's hard to go on worrying when we begin to examine what troubles us, when we see our worries in context.
Walter Anderson The Confidence Course: Sevens Steps to Self-Fulfillment
Categories: worry perspective anxiety focus attitude

Another, equally important part of growing up is no
Elaine N. Aron The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You
Categories: maturity focus balance priorities choice

How different our lives are when we really know what is deeply important to us, and keeping that picture in mind, we manage ourselves each day to be and to do what really matters most.
Stephen Covey The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
Categories: priorities balance planning focus action

Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn, whatever state I may be in, therein to be content.
Helen Keller The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: focus attitude learning contentment serenity

But why, ungrateful, dwell on idle pain?
William Wordsworth 'An Evening Walk (Addressed to a Young Lady' by William
Categories: pain suffering gratitude blessings focus

When you attend to something with true meditative attention, you awaken it in a special way.
Carolyn Forche "Live Welcoming to All" by Sue Monk Kidd, which appeared in the September/October 1997 issue of Weavings.
Categories: vision focus attitude inner beauty inner peace

Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand...Simplify, simplify.
Henry David Thoreau The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: simple simplicity simplify focus success

Happy the man who has learned the cause of things and has put under his feet all fear, inexorable fate, and the noisy strife of the hell of greed.
Virgil The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness point of view focus choice

...complaining is what we do well. We do it artfully and with gusto, and although I personally consider it a pleasurable hobby, sometimes you just have to gag your inner whiner to let other voices (like your imagination) get a word in edgewise.
Carol Lloyd Creating a Life Worth Living
Categories: focus complaints complaining whining energy

Today, we must start to recover our sanity. The way we do this is to concentrate slowly on completing one task at a time, each hour of the date, until the day is over.
Sarah Ban Breathnach Simple Abundance
Categories: focus balance stress peace pacing

The noisome weeds, that without profit suck
The soil's fertility from wholesome flowers.
William Shakespeare (King Richard II) Bartlett's Familiar Quotations
Categories: priorities focus planning crisis management

In order to be utterly happy the only thing necessary is to refrain from comparing this moment with other moments in the past, which I often did not fully enjoy because I was comparing them with other moments of the future.
Andre Gide The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness focus now present joy happy past future

The behavior of actually walking away from important problems is a relatively extreme negative approach to problem solving. In other cases, people may mentally "walk away" without physically removing themselves...Lack of attention to a task is not simply a result of "disinterest" or "laziness." Attention can also be affected by fear and anxiety.
John D. Bransford and Barry S. Stein The Ideal Problem Solver
Categories: attention focus problems challenges obstacles difficulties

The past is a foreign country, they do things differently there.
L.P. Hartley The Go-Between
Categories: history past future change growth focus

Although our inattention can contribute to our lack of total well-being, we also have the power to choose positive behaviors and responses. In that choice we change our every experience of life!
Greg Anderson The 22 Non-Negotiable Laws of Wellness
Categories: focus choice life attitude wellness power

How you think about a problem is more important than the problem itself -- so always think positively.
Norman Vincent Peale Positive Thinking Every Day: An Inspiration for Each Day of the Year
Categories: perspective focus attitude adversity difficulties problems

Ideas are hard chunks of reality waiting to be born. They have ingredients, names, purposes, and attendant tasks. They are the things we want to cultivate in the place of all those feelings that fill up our heads with abstract longing and dissatisfaction.
Carol Lloyd Creating a Life Worth Living
Categories: ideas emotions feelings dissatisfaction focus excellence

... success or failure, the truth of a life really has little to do with its quality. The quality of life is in proportion, always, to the capacity for delight. The capacity for delight is the gift of paying attention.
Julie Cameron
Categories: delight joy happiness focus gratitude appreciation awareness

One never notices what has been done; one can only see what remains to be done.
Marie Curie Treasury of Women's Quotations
Categories: work effort action success focus perspective

The time of life is short;
To spend that shortness basely were too long.
William Shakespeare (King Henry IV) Bartlett's Familiar Quotations
Categories: life priorities balance focus vision mission

You can never plan the future by the past.
Edmund Burke Body, Mind and Spirit
Categories: planning focus priorities habit mistakes success

Everything in life can be nourishing. Everything can bless us, but we've got to be there for the blessing to occur. Being present with quality is a decision we are invited to make each day.
MacRina Wiederkehr A Tree Full of Angels
Categories: nurture blessing present focus presence choice

Happiness does not depend on outward things, but on the way we see them.
Leo Tolstoy The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: focus perception materialism choice possessions happiness

The greedy search for money or success will almost always lead men into unhappiness. Why? Because that kind of life makes them depend upon things outside themselves.
Andre Maurois Light from Many Lamps
Categories: success materialism focus possessions goals unhappiness depression

Who begins much, finishes little.
German proverb The Prentice-Hall Encyclopedia of World Proverbs
Categories: focus goals planning mission vision success judgement

Let nothing good or bad upset the balance of your life.
Thomas à Kempis Body, Mind and Spirit
Categories: balance focus stability maturity calm serenity character

Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.
Melody Beattie Simple Abundance
Categories: gratitude attitude focus balance happiness joy fulfillment meaning

Whatever withdraws us from the power of our senses; whatever makes the past, the distant, or the future predominate over the present, advances us in the dignity of thinking beings.
Samuel Johnson The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations
Categories: senses self-control focus past present future dignity

Develop interest in life as you see it; in people, things, literature, music -- the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself.
Henry Miller
Categories: focus awareness growth appreciation gratitude happiness creativity joy

The world is too much with us. Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers.
William Wordsworth Simple Abundance
Categories: materialism money possessions focus balance work career

What's gone and what's past help
Should be past grief.
William Shakespeare (The Winter's Tale) Bartlett's Familiar Quotations
Categories: past grief depression attitude focus present future

The airplane stays up because it doesn't have the time to fall.
Orville Wright The Guinness Chronicle of the 20th-century in Quotations edited by David Milsted
Categories: focus time priorities work excellence drive purpose

Consider the postage stamp, my son. It secures success through its ability to stick to one thing till it gets there.
Josh Billings The 13 Secrets of Power Performance
Categories: success focus vision plan goal persistance determination

Misfortunes do not flourish particularly in our path. They grow everywhere.
Big Elk A Cherokee Feast of Days: Daily Meditations
Categories: problems challenges difficulties obstacles attitude focus acceptance

All the water in the world cannot drown you -- unless it gets inside.
Mary Manin Boggs Wake-Up Calls : You Don't Have to Sleepwalk Through Your Life, Love, or Career!
Categories: choice attitude thought problems challenges difficulties focus

A man may be so much of everything that he is nothing of everything.
Samuel Johnson The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: focus concentration vision priorities mission balance success

Anger and haste hinder good counsel.
English proverb The Prentice-Hall Encyclopedia of World Proverbs
Categories: anger hurry haste counsel advice wisdom focus

You can't expect to prevent negative feelings altogether. And you can't expect to experience positive feelings all the time...The Law of Emotional Choice directs us to acknowledge our feelings but also to refuse to get stuck in the negative ones.
Greg Anderson The 22 Non-Negotiable Laws of Wellness
Categories: feelings emotions choice attitude stuck focus wellness

..for some of us, books are as important as almost anything else on earth. What a miracle it is that out of these small, flat, rigid pieces of paper unfolds world after world, worlds that sing to you, comfort and quiet you or excite you. Books help us understand who we are and how we are to behave. They show us what community and friendship mean; they show us how to live and die. They are full of the things that you don't get in real life--wonderful, lyrical language, for instance. And quality of attention: we may notice amazing details during the course of a day but we rarely let ourselves stop and really pay attention. An author makes you notice, makes you pay attention, and this is a great gift. My gratitude for good writing is unboundec; I'm grateful for it the way I'm grateful for the ocean.
Anne Lamott Bird by Bird
Categories: books reading growth learning focus attention education

Life's strict rule is this: You get more of what you focus on. Ignoring this, we abandon our healthiest, concentrative energies and court emotional upheaval.
Marsha Sinetar To Build the Life You Want, Create the Work You Love: The Spiritual Dimension of Entrepreneuring
Categories: life focus vision stress wellness happiness energy

As the gardener, by severe pruning, forces the sap of the tree into one or two vigorous limbs, so should you stop off your miscellaneous activity and concentrate your force on one or a few points.
Ralph Waldo Emerson The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: focus concentration vision priorities balance success energy

Tomorrow will be like today. Life wastes itself while we are preparing to live. Our friends and fellow-workers die off from us.
Ralph Waldo Emerson Thoughts on Leadership
Categories: life living attention focus balance plans goals relationships

Life is a series of problems. Do we want to moan about them or solve them?
M. Scott Peck The Road Less Traveled
Categories: life challenges difficulties obstacles problems focus perspective action

An optimist sees an opportunity in every calamity; a pessimist sees a calamity in every opportunity.
Winston Churchill The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: optimism pessimism attitude focus vision perspective negative positive

Small matters win great commendation.
Francis Bacon The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations
Categories: details business responsibility attention success effort focus work

What if this present were the world's last night?
John Donne Alexandra Stoddard's Book of Days
Categories: balance priorities present focus choices lifestyle true north principles

The road to happiness lies in two simple principles: find what it is that interests you and that you can do well, and when you find it put your whole soul into it -- every bit of energy and ambition and natural ability you have.
John D. Rockefeller III The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness passion hobbies work commitment dedication focus talent fulfillment

He is blessed over all mortals who loses no moment of the passing life.
Henry David Thoreau The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: life time success priorities focus vision mission goal happiness

It doesn't take a lot to make me happy. I like to work out. I like to play ball. I like to spend time with my friends. I like to make myself better every day. I like to try to learn. It doesn't take money to do that.
Steve Nash, Phoenix Suns player "Stevie Wonder" by Brian Bujdos, an article in the April 1998 issue of FastBreak magazine
Categories: happiness materialism focus friendship growth learning change self-improvement priorities

Those who attain any excellence commonly spend life in one pursuit; for excellence is not often granted upon easier terms.
Samuel Johnson The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: focus excellence success vision mission priorities work talent skill

Devotion is a choice to focus one's being in a certain way, to bring one's faith, commitment, creativity, and love into coordination with a particular value and purpose.
J.F.T. Bugental Thoughts on Leadership
Categories: purpose fulfillment meaning focus dedication vision mission goal success

Think of the steady, reassuring rhythm of the natural world--the ebb and flow of the tides, the recurring cycle of the the four seasons, the monthly phases of the moon, and the daily progression from day into night. Rhythm needs to be the cornerstone in our personal world as well...Restoring rhythm to the way you conduct your affairs can bring you contentment and a sense of well-being that will nurture and sustain you when the cares of the world can't be left behind.
Sarah Ban Breathnach Simple Abundance
Categories: rhythm focus balance meaning fulfillment stress worry anxiety life

Rather than denying problems, focus inventively, intentionally on what solutions might look or feel like...Our mind is meant to generate ideas that help us escape circumstantial traps--if we trust it to do so. Naturally, not all hunches are useful. But then you only need a single good idea to solve a problem.
Marsha Sinetar To Build the Life You Want, Create the Work You Love: The Spiritual Dimension of Entrepreneuring
Categories: problems obstacles challenges difficulties focus solutions ideas mindmap mind

It is only possible to live happily ever after on a day to day basis.
Margaret Bonnano 1911 Best Things Anybody Ever Said
Categories: attitude focus balance expectations pressure present future happiness enjoyment

Anxiety and fear produce energy. Where we focus that energy noticeably affects the quality of our lives:

Focus on the solution, not the problem.
Walter Anderson The Confidence Course: Sevens Steps to Self-Fulfillment
Categories: anxiety fear energy problems challenges difficulties circumstances focus vision

While we are all subject to large social forces that shape our lives and the lives of our children, we also have the capacity as individuals to make conscious and intentional choices about how we're going to relate to our circumstances and to the era in which we find ourselves. We all have the potential to chart our own paths, to bring more attention and intentionality to our lives, and to attempt to see and honor the deep soul needs of our children as well as our own as best we can. Charting such a path for ourselves is made easier by having a larger framework within which to examine and come to understand what we are doing and what needs to be done -- a framework that can help to keep us on course, even though things may be constantly changing and our next steps often unclear. Mindfulness can provide such a framework.
Myla and Jon Kabat-Zinn Everyday Blessings: The Inner Work of Mindful Parenting
Categories: meditation self-awareness choices responsibility focus soul goals vision mission

When you decide clearly and definitely what you want, then no sacrifice is too great as you put all of your powers into astounding results.
Charles L. Allen in "How to Get What You Want" Treasury of Inspiration
Categories: focus clarity vision purpose goal mission visualization determination achievement success

Keep a definite goal of achievement constantly in view. Realize that work well and worthily done makes life truly worth living.
Grenville Kleiser The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: goal achievement success purpose focus vision mission work life living

Men who have attained things worth having in this world have worked while others idled, have persevered while others gave up in despair, have practiced early in life the valuable habits of self-denial, industry, and singleness of purpose. As a result, they enjoy in later life the success so often erroneously attributed to good luck.
Grenville Kleiser The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: achievement success work focus persevere self-denial vision mission luck purpose

Very little is needed to make a happy life. It is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.
Marcus Aurelius Lillian Eichler Watson
Categories: happiness attitude depression sadness thought joy inner peace positive thinking focus choice

In each of our lives, for whatever reason, there are times that we are faced with things that just don't make sense to us. And the more we struggle to understand our hardships, the less any of it makes sense.
I have found that in every challenge and obstacle that we are faced with there *can* be good that can come from it! While it's almost never easy to identify, I assure you that it is there lying dormant just waiting for us to release it! I urge everyone to spend your days looking for positives in your life.
Josh Hinds The Inspiration a Day! mailing list, April 8, 1998.
Categories: blessings positive focus attitude gratitude struggle problem difficulties obstacles vision

Real life isn't always going to be perfect or go our way, but the recurring acknowledgement of what is working in our lives can help us not only to survive but surmount our difficulties.
Sarah Ban Breathnach Simple Abundance
Categories: change difficulties obstacles challenges adversity problems gratitude attitude focus growth

It is by studying little things that we attain the great knowledge of having as little misery and as much happiness as possible.
Samuel Johnson The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: contemplation study education learning knowledge misery happiness joy attitude focus success

Prosperity is only an instrument to be used, not a deity to be worshiped.
Calvin Coolidge Power Quotes
Categories: money possessions materialism priorities focus wealth success riches prosperity balance

When you want a thing deeply, earnestly and intensely, this feeling of desire reinforces your will and arouses in you the determination to work for the desired object. When you have a distinct purpose in view, your work becomes of absorbing interest. You bend your best powers to it; you give it concentrated attention; you think of little else than the realization of this purpose; your will is stimulated into unusual activity, and as a consequence you do your work with an increasing sense of power.
Grenville Kleiser The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: purpose drive will determination vision mission goal focus attention effort power

If there is a sin against life, it consists perhaps not so much in despairing of life as in hoping for another life and in eluding the implacable grandeur of this life.
Albert Camus How to Want What You Have:
Categories: life sin mistake failure despair depression suicide appreciation gratitude meaning wishing focus

Every industrious man, in every lawful calling, is a useful man. And one principal reason why men are so often useless is that they neglect their own profession or calling, and divide and shift their attention among a multiplicity of objects and pursuits.
Ralph Waldo Emerson The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: work effort self-respect usefulness focus balance priorities planning vision mission success

When we can see past our own reflection - when we see and care beyond ourselves, when we see and learn from others - only then do we become adults.
Walter Anderson The Confidence Course: Sevens Steps to Self-Fulfillment
Categories: focus balance orientation community society responsibility maturity mature maturation growth service ministry

...what I focus on in life is what I get. And if I concentrate on how bad I am or how wrong I am or how inadequate I am, if I concentrate on what I can't do and how there's not enough time in which to do it, isn't that what I get every time? And when I think about how powerful I am, and when I think about what I have left to contribute, and when I think about the difference I can make on this planet, then that's what I get. You see, I recognize that it's not what happens to you; it's what you do about it.
W. Mitchell Wake-Up Calls : You Don't Have to Sleepwalk Through Your Life, Love, or Career!
Categories: focus perspective mistakes balance success failure time power ability effectiveness action effort

Do not waste worry. If you're going to worry, worry well. Put that energy to good use; aim it at an answer. Don't forget: Nothing diminishes anxiety faster than action.
Walter Anderson The Confidence Course: Sevens Steps to Self-Fulfillment
Categories: worry energy problems solutions difficulties challenges circumstances focus vision anxiety fear action

One can never change the past, only the hold it has on you, and while nothing in your life is reversible, you can reverse it nevertheless.
Merle Shain Simple Abundance
Categories: past hindsight history focus choice letting go forgiveness mistakes errors failure start fresh

Do not let trifles disturb your tranquility of mind. The little pinpricks of daily life when dwelt upon and magnified, may do great damage, but if ignored or dismissed from thought, will disappear from inanition. Most men have worried about things which never happened, and more men have been killed by worry than by hard work. Life is so great in its opportunities and possibilities, that you should rise confidently above the inevitable trifles incident to daily contact with the world. Life is too precious to be sacrificed for the nonessential and transient...Ignore the inconsequential.
Grenville Kleiser Light from Many Lamps
Categories: serenity peace tranquility circumstances problems difficulties challenges focus attitude worry work life opportunities

...true happiness stems from a quality within ourselves, from a way of thinking of life. Of all the millions of words written on happiness, this is the oldest and most enduring truth. If the principles of contentment are not within us, no material success, no pleasures or possessions, can make us happy.
Lillian Eichler Watson Light from Many Lamps
Categories: happiness attitude depression contentment materialism sadness success joy happy focus money possessions indulgence balance character

All of the most successful human beings I've know were inwardly at war with themselves. Their turmoil was at least as great as our own, and sometimes greater. What distinguished these leaders was not some inner peace but rather how they had learned to organize their lives around a noble ambition and to focus on it.
Walter Anderson The Confidence Course: Sevens Steps to Self-Fulfillment
Categories: leadership excellence focus priorities balance peace purpose mission vision goal character meaning fulfillment service

Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!
Lewis Carroll, from Through the Looking Glass The Oxford Dictionary of Phrase, Saying, and Quotation
Categories: effort work achievement goal dream stress life success excellence vision mission focus leadership progress

We all have days in our lives that are marked by great moments of rejoicing and celebration...But life is not an endless round of cake and champagne. There's a lot of drudgery to most of our days...To keep our daily round from being all drudgery, we've got to savor the art of the small: discovering delights that bring us peace and pleasure.
Sarah Ban Breathnach Simple Abundance
Categories: routine boredom apathy daily grind happiness emotions meaning fulfillment authenticity joy awareness spirituality focus balance

Always there will be, along the sidelines of life, inferior souls who throw mud at those whose attainments they do not quite understand. The man who really accomplishes doesn't pay attention to such detractors. If he did, he'd be on their level. He keeps an eye singled on the higher goal--and the mud never touches him.
Jerome P. Fleishman The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: criticism critics negativity negative negativism opinions success achievement accomplishment goal vision mission singlemindedness focus determination

I will not be concerned at other men's not knowing me; I will be concerned at my own want of ability.
Confucius The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: ability focus concentration priorities jealousy competitiveness competition teamwork publicity humility compete work effort skills talents gifts

I have never looked upon ease and happiness as ends in themselves--such an ethical basis I call the ideal of a pigsty...The ideals which have lighted my way, and time after time have given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Kindness, Beauty, and Truth.
Albert Einstein The Quotable Einstein
Categories: comfort happy virtue strength kindness beauty truth goodness honesty integrity purity uplifting inspiring attitude focus gratitude

Positive thoughts (joy, happiness, fulfillment, achievement, worthiness) have positive results (enthusiasm, calm, well-being, ease, energy, love). Negative thoughts (judgement, unworthiness, mistrust, resentment, fear) produce negative results (tension, anxiety, alienation, anger, fatigue).
Peter McWilliams You Can't Afford the Luxury of a Negative Thought
Categories: attitude focus positive negative joy love happiness fulfillment self-esteem enthusiasm serenity peace wellness energy trust resentment fear tension anxiety fear fatigue emotions meaning success health