There is a stigma attached to being in crisis. But I say, Let's normalize it. Let's admit that none of us have it together.
Ronit Herzfeld "Master of Startup Disasters" by Rekha Balu, Fast Company, June 2000
Categories: growth self-improvement

Without hope, we cannot survive, much less progress.
Warren G. Bennis On Becoming a Leader
Categories: hope self-improvement

You can't understand the world and how you respond to it until you first know yourself. You can't change the things you don't like about yourself until you search out the things that influence you and motivate you and hurt you.
Stedman Graham You Can Make It Happen : A Nine-Step Plan for Success
Categories: self-awareness growth self-improvement

This is the way of the most wise and useful people - the more they know, the more they long to know.
Dale Dauten "What have you done worthwhile today?" by Dale Dauten, Arizona Republic, 10/30/2000.
Categories: growth education self-improvement

Just as negative addictions sneak up on us a day at a time, so do positive cravings. Meditation, creative movement, moments of self-nurturance that bring contentment -- all can become positive habits of well-being.
Sarah Ban Breathnach Simple Abundance: A Daybook of Comfort and Joy
Categories: habit choice self-improvement

When the explorer is ready, the guide will appear.
Himalayan saying "Idea Summit" by Anna Muoio, Fast Company, January/February 2000
Categories: attitude growth self-improvement

Once you recognize within yourself a hunger for something beyond just continuing, once you taste even the possibility of touching the meaning enfolded in your life, you can never be completely content with just going through the motions. There is no going back. Learning cannot be undone. The wisdom touched in moments of real intimacy penetrate the soul with knowledge of who and what we are. It transforms us.
Oriah Mountain Dreamer The Invitation
Categories: growth self-improvement self-knowledge

Heroics have no place in real personality growth. Hard and consistent work do have a central and very real place, but not heroics.
Lawrence LeShan, PhD Meditating to Attain a Healthy Body Weight
Categories: personal growth self-improvement

Growth and change are never easy...If it were easy, you would have done it long ago.
Lawrence LeShan Meditating to Attain a Healthy Body Weight
Categories: change growth self-improvement

I am one of those who believe that spiritual progress is a rule of human life, but the approach to perfection is slow and painful. If a woman elevates herself in one respect and is retarded in another, it is because the rough trail that leads to the mountain peak is not free of ambushes of thieves and lairs of wolves.
Kahlil Gibran The Broken Wings
Categories: growth self-improvement change

There is nothing wrong with change, if it is in the right direction.
Winston Churchill The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: change growth self-improvement

Everyone has difficulty with the steps of inner growth, even with the outer obstacles seem easily surmountable. What's more, the prizes of our
Gail Sheehy Passages: Predictable Crises of Adult Life
Categories: personal growth self-improvement

All my life I used to wonder what I would become when I grew up. Then, about seven years ago, I realized that I was never going to grow up--that growing is an ever ongoing process.
M. Scott Peck Further Along the Road Less Traveled: The Unending Journey Toward Spiritual Growth
Categories: growth maturity self-improvement

Change can be exhilarating, joyous, liberating. But it can also be terrifying, because, in a deeper sense, you are questioning your very identity and sense of value. But take the risk. It's worth it.
Dee Hock Fast Company, July/August 1999
Categories: change growth self-improvement

It's never too late -- in fiction or in life -- to revise.
Nancy Thayer Simple Abundance: A Daybook of Comfort and Joy
Categories: change self-improvement growth

Would you ever have the nerve to talk to anyone else as callously as you talk to yourself? You have done nothing to deserve abusive treatment, and you deserve an apology.
Jane R. Hirschmann and Carol Munter When Women Stop Hating Their Bodies: Freeing Yourself from Food and Weight Obsession
Categories: self-acceptance self-improvement self-esteem

We are limited but we can push back the borders of our limitations.
Stephen Covey The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
Categories: limitations growth self-improvement

All the best transformations are
Fay Weldon Simple Abundance: A Daybook of Comfort and Joy
Categories: change personal growth self-improvement

Maturity is achieved when a person accepts life as full of tension.
Joshua L. Liebman The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: growth self-improvement change acceptance

You are your own raw material. When you know what you consist of and what you want to make of it, then you can invent yourself.
Warren G. Bennis On Becoming a Leader
Categories: self-awareness vision growth self-improvement

This [is] the law of progress in everything we do; it moves along a spiral rather than a perpendicular; we seem to be actually going out of the way and yet it turns out we were really moving upward all the time.
Frances Willard To Build the Life You Want, Create the Work You Love: The Spiritual Dimension of Entrepreneuring
Categories: progress change growth self-improvement

Great love -- the kind that illumines and transforms us -- always includes a keen awareness of limitation as well. Though love may inspire us to expand and develop in new ways, we can never be all things to the one we love, or someone other than who we are. Yet once accepted, limitation also helps us develop essential qualities, such as patience, determination, compassion, and humor. When love comes down to earth -- bringing to light those dark corners we would prefer to ignore, encompassing all the different parts of who we are -- it gains depth and power.
John Welwood The Spirit of Loving
Categories: love growth change self-improvement

...when the fight begins within himself
A man's worth something.
Robert Browning The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations
Categories: self-awareness growth self-improvement change

Simply, health is an ongoing process, often painful, of an organism becoming the most--the best--it can be. And disease is anything, sometimes painful, often painless, that interferes with the process of health.
M. Scott Peck A World Waiting to be Born: Civility Rediscovered
Categories: wellness bad habits growth self-improvement

The potential for changing the future can lie only in the present.
Gillian Butler, Ph.D. and Tony Hope, M.D. Managing Your Mind: The Mental Fitness Guide
Categories: change future present self-improvement

In spite of all the knowledge that has been amassed through the ages, people would still rather learn from their own limited experiences so their responses to life remain just as primitive as those of people a thousand years ago. Can man change?
Joseph F. Girzone Joshua
Categories: change reading education self-improvement

You don't need to become perfect all at once.
Thomas E. Clarke, S.J. "Fear and Anger on Our Side," Weavings, May/June 1997.
Categories: perfectionism self-improvement growth acceptance

It is not enough to be good if you have the ability to be better.
Alberta Lee Cox The New Encyclopedia of Christian Quotations
Categories: success self-improvement growth change

Better to ask than to go astray.
Italian proverb The Prentice-Hall Encyclopedia of World Proverbs
Categories: growth learning education self-improvement

Lessons are usually where you look for them: you can learn something from anyone.
Brian Koval "Shifting Gears," Fast Company magazine, September 1999
Categories: growth learning education self-improvement

We are not born all at once, but by bits. The body first, and the spirit later. Our mothers are racked with the pains of our physical birth; we ourselves suffer the longer pains of our spiritual growth.
Mary Antin Simple Abundance
Categories: personal growth self-improvement change

There is only one journey. Going inside yourself.
Rainer Maria Rilke Simple Abundance
Categories: growth self-improvement meditation self-knowledge

Admission of ignorance is often the first step in our education.
Stephen Covey Daily Reflections for Highly Effective People: Living the Seven Habits
Categories: education growth self-improvement self-awareness

True life is lived when tiny changes occur.
Leo Tolstoy Simple Abundance
Categories: change self-improvement growth life

For one of the most marvelous lessons you learn on a path of personal transformation is that when your heart is open to change, you're able to recognize the personal signals of encouragement your authentic self is constantly sending, no matter how unlikely the source.
Sarah Ban Breathnach Simple Abundance
Categories: change growth self-improvement authenticity

One sure-fire way to stay creative: force yourself to learn something new.
Harvey Mackay "For many, creative spurt in life comes after age 60" by Harvey Mackay, Arizona Republic Feb. 9, 2000
Categories: learning growth self-improvement creativity

Changes are not only possible and predictable, but to deny them is to be an accomplice to one's own unnecessary vegetation.
Gail Sheehy Treasury of Women's Quotations
Categories: change growth self-improvement rut stagnation

There is no sin punished more implacably by nature than the sin of resistance to change.
Anne Morrow Lindbergh Treasury of Women's Quotations
Categories: change transitions growth self-improvement

Continuity gives us roots; change gives us branches, letting a stretch and grow and reach new heights.
Pauline R. Kezer Treasury of Women's Quotations
Categories: change self-improvement transitions growth

The first step toward change is acceptance. Once you accept yourself, you open the door to change. That's all you have to do. Change is not something you do, it's something you allow.
Will Garcia The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: change personal growth self-improvement

Life, as I see it is not a location, but a journey. Everything is in flux, and is meant to be. Life flows. We may live at the same number of the street, but it is never the same man who lives there.
Henry Ford Business Lessons for All by Peter Krass, Bottom Line Personal, Jan 1, 1998
Categories: personal growth change self-improvement

It looks as if there were a single ultimate goal for mankind, a far goal toward which all persons strive. This is called variously by different authors self-actualization, self-realization, integration, psychological health, individuation, autonomy, creativity, productivity, but they all agree that this amounts to realizing the potentialities of the person, that is to say, becoming fully human, everything that person can be.
Abraham Maslow Thoughts on Leadership
Categories: personal growth self-improvement creativity becoming

Each human organism is conceived with a potential for becoming a complete human being--as a seed contains the potential for becoming a complete plant. But his becoming may be completed in an infinite variety of ways.
Francis Wilson Thoughts on Leadership
Categories: growth self-improvement potential possibilities

When we learn how to be truly present with our joy and our sorrow, with our longing and our desires, layer upon layer of our selves and the world are revealed. We cannot know in advance what this revelation will look like or what action it will inspire or compel us to take.
Oriah Mountain Dreamer The Invitation
Categories: authenticity self-awareness growth self-improvement

The desire to know is natural to good men.
Leonardo da Vinci Leonardo: Discovering the Life of Leonardo Da Vinci
Categories: knowledge wisdom education self-improvement

It's not whether we make mistakes that matters, it's understanding the opportunity they afford us.
Walter Anderson The Confidence Course: Seven Steps to Self-Fulfillment
Categories: mistakes failures growth self-improvement

Our own beliefs create inner turmoil or harmony and lifelong learning. If we can assimilate every event as instruction, nothing is wasted, no experience is for naught.
Marsha Sinetar To Build the Life You Want, Create the Work You Love: The Spiritual Dimension of Entrepreneuring
Categories: beliefs learning self-improvement growth

Perfection leaves so little room for improvement. So little space for acceptance -- or joy. On the path we have chosen, progress is the simple pleasure to be savored.
Sarah Ban Breathnach Simple Abundance: A Daybook of Comfort and Joy
Categories: perfectionism self-improvement happiness growth

Changing your life, of course, is a matter of definition. It could mean opening your mind to a new concept or causing you to look at the commonplace from a different perspective or with new insight. It doesn't have to be revolutionary to be significant.
Carolyn Warner Treasury of Women's Quotations
Categories: change growth learning self-improvement

The process of maturing is an art to be learned, an effort to be sustained. By the age of fifty, you have made yourself what you are, and if it is good, it is better than your youth.
Marya Mannes Treasury of Women's Quotations
Categories: maturity growth self-improvement self-knowledge

Each success only buys an admission ticket to a more difficult problem.
Henry Kissinger Power Quotes
Categories: success achievement growth self-improvement

... awareness has to be conclusive. It has to include recognizing our own frustrations, insecurities, and shortcomings, our limits and limitations, even our darkest and most destructive feelings, and the way we may feel overwhelmed or pulled apart. It challenges us to "work with" these very energies consciously and systematically.
Myla and Jon Kabat-Zinn Everyday Blessings: The Inner Work of Mindful Parenting
Categories: mindfulness attention growth self-improvement

The art of progress is to preserve order amid change and to preserve change amid order.
Alfred North Whitehead Webster's New World Dictionary of Quotations
Categories: change progress improvement growth

Be gentle with yourself.
Sarah Ban Breathnach Simple Abundance: A Daybook of Comfort and Joy
Categories: growth self-improvement self-esteem perfectionism

As-if principle: If you want a quality, act as if you already had it.
William James Words for All Occasions
Categories: character growth self-improvement self-determination

I expect I shall be a student to the end of my days.
Chekhov Alexandra Stoddard's Book of Days
Categories: growth education learning self-improvement

Be a Columbus to whole new continents and worlds within you, opening new channels, not of trade, but of thought.
Henry David Thoreau The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: growth self-improvement spirituality thought

We are not what we know. We are what we are willing to learn.
Council on Ideas "Insights from the World's Most Expensive Fortune Cookies," Spirituality and Health, Spring 2001.
Categories: growth education self-improvement potential

Long customs are not easily broken: He that attempts to change the course of his own life very often labors in vain; and how shall we do for others what we are seldom able to do for ourselves?
Samuel Johnson The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: habits change self-improvement relationships

Private victories precede public victories. You can't invert that process any more than you can harvest a crop before you plant it.
Stephen Covey The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
Categories: victory self-improvement growth change

Creativity doesn't just leak away; it gets buried. Buried by years of looking for the one right answer in school, by hundreds of multiple choice tests and rigid lesson plans; buried by boring jobs, workplace politics, restrictive rules, and fear of failure, and it gets buried by our own definition of "noncreative." We don't need to learn how to be creative; we need to unlearn how to be uncreative!
G. Lynne Snead and Joyce Wycoff To Do Doing Done!
Categories: creativity growth learning education self-improvement

Every day and in every way, I am becoming better and better.
Emile Coue What You Can Change... and What You Can't
Categories: self-improvement positive thinking affirmations visualization

Every experience, every thought, every word, every person in your life is a part of a larger picture of your growth... Let everything energize you. Let everything bless you. Even your limping can bless you.
Macrina Wiederkehr A Tree Full of Angels: Seeing the Holy in the Ordinary
Categories: growth self-improvement learning present mindfulness

...when you have a sense of your own identity and a vision of where you want to go in your life, you then have the basis for reaching out to the world and going after your dreams for a better life.
Stedman Graham You Can Make It Happen:
Categories: self-knowledge vision self-awareness self-improvement dreams

If we are wise, we discover that our answers come only when we work them out for ourselves. Others may contribute to our understanding, but the acquiring of personal wisdom is always an inside job. No one can do it for us.
Leo Buscaglia Born for Love: Reflections on Loving
Categories: personal growth education learning self-improvement

Within your heart, keep one still, secret spot where dreams may go.
Louise Driscoll Simple Abundance: A Daybook of Comfort and Joy
Categories: dreams growth self-improvement vision self-nurture

Taking charge of your own learning is a part of taking charge of your life, which is the sine qua non in becoming an integrated person.
Warren Bennis On Becoming a Leader
Categories: learning growth education self-improvement self-actualization

Problems do not go away. They must be worked through or else they remain, forever a barrier to the growth and development of the spirit.
M. Scott Peck The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth
Categories: problems difficulties growth self-improvement self-awareness

That's the risk you take if you change: that people you've been involved with won't like the new you. But other people who do will come along.
Lisa Alther Treasury of Women's Quotations
Categories: change growth self-improvement friendships relationships

There are no perfect human beings! My personal judgments are that no perfect human being is possible or even conceivable, but that human beings are far more improvable than most people believe.
Abraham Maslow Thoughts on Leadership: A Treasury of Quotations
Categories: perfectionism expectations self-improvement growth change

To be what we are, and to become what we are capable of becoming, is the only end of life.
Baruch Spinoza The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: growth self-improvement learning education success

Many people never go after their dreams for a better life because they are afraid of change.
Stedman Graham You Can Make It Happen : A Nine-Step Plan for Success
Categories: dream change growth attitudes self-improvement

There is no road or ready way to virtue.
Sir Kenelm Digby Bartlett's Familiar Quotations
Categories: growth self-improvement character morality ethics

Don't water your weeds.
Harvey Mackay Harvey Mackay's United Features syndicated column
Categories: growth priorities change bad habits self-improvement

Harmful habits can be broken. You can
Dr. Arthur Freeman and Rose Dewolf The 10 Dumbest Mistakes Smart People Make and How to Avoid : Simple and Sure Techniques for Gaining Greater Control of Your Life
Categories: habits thoughts actions change self-improvement

Whenever your present situation, I
Stephen Covey The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People : Powerful Lessons in Personal Change
Categories: habits change self-improvement personal growth

It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent
C.S. Lewis Mere Christianity
Categories: change personal growth self-improvement renewal

The doctor and the pastor ask about your health, but eternity makes you responsible for your condition.
Soren Kierkegaard Thoughts on Leadership: A Treasury of Quotations
Categories: spirituality growth personal responsibility self-improvement

I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor.
Henry David Thoreau Walden
Categories: education learning wisdom growth self-improvement

Thought and character are one, and as character can only manifest itself through environment and circumstance, the outer conditions of a person's life will always be found to be harmoniously related to his inner state. This does not mean that a man's circumstances at any given time are an indication of his entire character, but that those circumstances are so intimately connected with some vital thought-element within himself that, for the time being, they are indispensable to his development.
James Allen As a Man Thinketh
Categories: thought attitude character growth self-improvement

Happiness is the indication that man has found the answer to the problem of human existence: the productive realization of his potentialities and thus, simultaneously, being one with the world and preserving the integrity of his self.
Erich Fromm Thoughts on Leadership
Categories: happiness joy potential growth self-improvement authenticity

Freedom is man's capacity to take a hand in his own development. It is our capacity to mold ourselves.
Rollo May Thoughts on Leadership
Categories: freedom free will self-improvement personal growth

"Know thyself" was the inscription over the Oracle at Delphi. And it is still the most difficult task any of us faces. But until you truly know yourself, strengths and weaknesses, know what you want to do and why you want to do it, you cannot succeed in any but the most superficial sense of the word. The leader never lies to himself, especially about himself, knows his flaws as well as his assets, and deals with them directly. You are your own raw material. When you know what you consist of and why you want to make of it, then you can invent yourself.
Warren Bennis Thoughts on Leadership: A Treasury of Quotations
Categories: leadership self-awareness self-improvement growth authenticity

If I had my life to live over again, I would have made a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least once a week; for perhaps the parts of my brain now atrophied would have thus been kept active through use. The loss of these tastes is a loss of happiness, and may possibly be injurious to the intellect, and more probably to the moral character, by enfeebling the emotional part of our nature.
Charles Darwin The Forbes Book of Business Quotations: 14,266 Thoughts on the Business of Life
Categories: relaxation reading self-improvement self-nurture music art

Even when change is elective, it will disorient you. You may go through anxiety. You will miss aspects of your former life. It doesn't matter. The trick is to know in advance of making any big change that you're going to be thrown off your feet by it. So you prepare for this inevitable disorientation and steady yourself to get through it. Then you take the challenge, make the change, and achieve your dream.
Harvey Mackay "Confusion inevitable with any change" by Harvey Mackay, Arizona Republic, 8/30/2000
Categories: change growth self-improvement success fulfillment

It is a rare and difficult attainment to grow old gracefully and happily.
Lydia M. Child Treasury of Women's Quotations
Categories: age aging growth self-improvement self-esteem self-confidence

An ass does not stumble twice over the same stone.
French proverb The Prentice-Hall Encyclopedia of World Proverbs
Categories: learning change growth self-improvement habit

Man's capacities have never been measured. Nor are we to judge of what he can do by precedents, so little has been tried.
Henry David Thoreau The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: potential ability growth self-improvement goals

More people would learn from their mistakes if they weren't so busy denying them.
J. Harold Smith Words for All Occasions
Categories: mistakes growth self-improvement personal responsibility

Sixty years ago I knew everything; now I know nothing; education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.
Will Durant "Find the gem amid the 'blah, blah, blah' by Dale Dauten, Arizona Republic, April 16, 2001
Categories: education self-improvement growth self-awareness learning

I have long been fascinated by how we humans participate in our own evolution. Our growth process always seems to be happening in two directions at the same time: back to who we were originally--our true selves; and forward to what we can become--fulfilling that true self.
C. Diane Ealy The Woman's Book of Creativity (The Business of Life)
Categories: creativity growth self-improvement learning change

And the day came when the risk [it took] to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to bloom.
Anais Nin Simple Abundance: A Daybook of Comfort and Joy
Categories: risk courage strength growth self-improvement

We have met the enemy and he is us.
Walt Kelly Power Quotes
Categories: discipline growth self-improvement procrastination bad habits

If thou wouldst conquer thy weakness thou must not gratify it.
William Penn The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: self-control habit change growth self-improvement

Assuming that the same program will work for all of us is like feeding oats to a tiger or birdseed to a horse.
Barbara Sher Live the Life You Love
Categories: exercise self-improvement growth individuality uniqueness

Habit is habit and not to be flung out the window by any man, but coaxed downstairs a step at a time.
Mark Twain Franklin Seasons DayPlanner, October 20, 1993
Categories: habit rut character change growth self-improvement

Love is a sacred reserve of energy; it is like the blood of spiritual evolution.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin The Spirit of Loving
Categories: love energy spirituality growth change self-improvement

I am a part of all that I have touched and that has touched me.
Thomas Wolfe Simple Abundance: A Daybook of Comfort and Joy
Categories: growth change evolution self-improvement learning education

He who seeks advice seldom errs.
Phillipine proverb The Prentice-Hall Encyclopedia of World Proverbs
Categories: advice wisdom mentor learning growth self-improvement

...our culture wants to turn mysteries into problems to be solved or breakdowns to be fixed, because maintaining the illusion that we can "straighten things out" makes us feel powerful. Yet mysteries never yield to solutions or fixes--and when we pretend that they do, life not only becomes more banal but more hopeless, because the fixes never works.
Parker J. Palmer "All the Way Down" by Parker J. Palmer in the September/October 1998 Weavings: Woven Together in Love
Categories: spirituality mystery acceptance growth learning self-improvement

There's no better way to waste time in life than to dwell on the past. You should learn from the past with as much objectivity as possible, so that you can modify your future actions -- and then move on.
Bonnie Dunbar Unit of One, Fast Company, November 1999
Categories: regrets worry past growth self-improvement learning

Most of those who succeed in achieving their goals do it by creating an environment for opportunity. They feel that they are entitled to go after what they want in life... They open themselves to positive change by becoming positive, energized people. They don't limit themselves with a poor self-image or a negative attitude. They get rid of negative baggage that holds them back. They believe in themselves, giving others cause to believe in them.
Stedman Graham You Can Make It Happen : A Nine-Step Plan for Success
Categories: success attitude self-image self-confidence self-improvement change

He that reads and grows no wiser seldom suspects his own deficiency, but complains of hard words and obscure sentences, and asks why books are written which cannot be understood.
Samuel Johnson The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: wisdom learning education ignorance growth self-improvement

True success comes when you hit a crisis or rough spot, and people don't revert to their old behaviors.
Lynn Mercer "Want to lead better? It's simple," Fast Company, March 2000
Categories: success growth self-improvement reaction difficulties problems

Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.
Sir Richard Steele Alexandra Stoddard's Book of Days
Categories: mind education learning wisdom self-improvement growth

I refuse to accept the idea that the "isness" of man's present nature makes him morally incapable of reaching up for the "oughtness" that forever confronts him.
Martin Luther King, Jr. The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: change growth self-improvement racism morality bigotry

Our lives can be powerfully shaped by what we long to
Greg Anderson The 22 Non-Negotiable Laws of Wellness: Feel, Think, and Live Better Than You Ever Thought Possible
Categories: vision ideal personal growth self-improvement potential

Self-observation is the groundwork for self-knowledge, and it is self-knowledge that effects change.
Elizabeth O'Connor Our Many Selves: A Handbook for Self-Discovery
Categories: self-awareness introspection meditation self-improvement personal growth

Compared to what we ought to be, we are only half awake. We're making use of only a small part of our physical and mental resources. Stating the thing broadly, the human individual thus lives far within his limits. He possesses powers of various sorts which he habitually fails to use.
William James Soar... If You Dare
Categories: potential creativity intelligence stretch growth self-improvement

Man's creative struggle, his search for wisdom and truth, is a love story.
Iris Murdoch The Spirit of Loving
Categories: education learning growth self-improvement truth creativity

A man's mind may be likened to a garden, which may be intelligently cultivated or allowed to run wild; but whether cultivated or neglected, it must, and will, bring forth...

Just as a gardener cultivates his plot, keeping it free from weeds, and growing the flowers and fruits, which he requires, so may a man tend the garden of his mind, weeding out all the wrong, useless, and impure thoughts, and cultivating toward perfection the flowers an fruits of right, useful, and pure thoughts. By pursuing this process, a man sooner or later discovers that he is the master gardener of his soul, the director of his life. He also reveals, within himself, the laws of thought, and understands, with ever-increasing accuracy, how the thought-forces and mind-elements operate in shaping his character, circumstances, and destiny.
James Allen Words for All Occasions
Categories: thoughts mind education self-improvement growth character

Life is change. Growth is optional. Choose wisely.
Karen Kaiser Clark Treasury of Women's Quotations
Categories: change growth transitions self-improvement choice responsibility

Spiritual growth requires the acknowledgment of one's need to grow.
M. Scott Peck Categories: spirituality growth self-improvement self-awareness pride vanity

You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you'll discover will be wonderful. What you'll discover is yourself.
Alan Alda Simple Abundance
Categories: self-awareness self-knowledge meditation intuition growth self-improvement

Life is growth. If we stop growing, technically and spiritually, we are as good as dead.
Morihei Ueshiba The Art of Peace
Categories: growth self-improvement learning life journey self-awareness

Men stumble over the truth from time to time but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing happened.
Winston Churchill The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: truth learning knowledge wisdom growth self-improvement

The absence of change is worse than inaction, it is atrophy.
Carolyn Warner Treasury of Women's Quotations
Categories: change action stagnation growth self-improvement flexibility

...the spiritual life consists only in part in striving for the ideal. The spiritual life is also, and perhaps more profoundly, about wrestling with the real. Perhaps the dance of holiness really occurs on the narrow apron of life's stage where we find ourselves poised between what we want to be and what we are.
Wendy M. Wright "Making Things New: Thoughts on Being Stripped, Naked, and Clothed," Weavings, Jan/Feb 1996
Categories: spirituality balance choices personal growth self-improvement

Most luxuries, and many of the so-called comforts of life are not only indispensible, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind.
Henry David Thoreau The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: materialism possessions luxury comfort growth self-improvement

It is better to ask some of the questions than know all of the answers.
James Thurber Words for All Occasions
Categories: learning education growth self-improvement thirst for knowledge

If you play it safe in life you've decided that you don't want to grow anymore.
Shirley Hufstedler Treasury of Women's Quotations
Categories: risk courage personal growth stagnation self-improvement

People say they wish they had my patience. I tell them I wasn't born with it. I had to learn it, just like I had to learn to carve. Everybody has patience. Some of us just make better use of it than others.
Bruce Law, woodcarver "It's more than a virtue" by Sam Lowe, published in the November 10, 1998 Arizona Republic.
Categories: patience patient wait growth self-improvement character

...changing your mind is easy; changing your heart is hard.
Timothy Ray Miller How to Want What You Have
Categories: change opinion bias beliefs self-improvement habit

A pilgrimage, after all, is a strenuous undertaking, one in which companionship and support may be pivotal.
Julie Cameron The Vein of Gold: A Journey to Your Creative Heart
Categories: change journey growth self-improvement support encouragement

We must have a pure, honest, and warmhearted motivation, and on top of that, determination, optimism, hope, and the ability not to be discouraged. The whole of humanity depends on this motivation.
The Dalai Lama Living in Balance: A Dynamic Approach for Creating Harmony & Wholeness in a Chaotic World
Categories: community society mankind self-improvement growth service

One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.
Andre Gide Simple Abundance
Categories: growth change transitions maturation self-improvement discovery

Be patient with everyone, but above all with yourself. I mean, do not be disheartened by your imperfections, but always rise up with fresh courage. How are we to be patient in dealing with our neighbor's faults if we are impatient in dealing with our own? He who is fretted by his own failings will not correct them. All profitable correction comes from a calm, peaceful mind.
St. Francis de Sales Living in Balance: A Dynamic Approach for Creating Harmony & Wholeness in a Chaotic World
Categories: patience self-improvement perfectionism relationships personal growth

I do not resent criticism, even when, for the sake of emphasis, it parts for the time with reality.
Winston Churchill The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations
Categories: criticism teaching self-improvement growth leadership mentor

Such to me is the new image of aging: growth in self and service for all mankind.
Ethel Percy Audrus Treasury of Women's Quotations
Categories: aging age self-improvement self-knowledge volunteerism ministry sharing giving

There is nothing wrong with making mistakes and not having all the answers, so long as we are willing to admit this and strive for personal betterment. Those who think they know it all have no way of finding out that they don't.
Leo Buscaglia Born for Love: Reflections on Loving
Categories: mistakes errors failure responsibility personal growth self-improvement

One must become as humble as the dust before he can discover truth.
Mahatma Gandhi The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: humility learning growth self-improvement meditation spirituality seeking

It is the province of knowledge to speak, and it is the privilege of wisdom to listen.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. Words for All Occasions
Categories: knowledge learning education teaching growth self-improvement communication

All our progress is an unfolding, like the vegetable bud. You have first an instinct, then an opinion, then a knowledge, as the plant has root, but and fruit.
Ralph Waldo Emerson The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: growth change progress self-improvement instinct opinion knowledge

There is always a better way.
Thomas Edison Alexandra Stoddard's Book of Days
Categories: growth change progress self-improvement success opportunity creativity

Progress is the activity of today and the assurance of tomorrow.
Ralph Waldo Emerson The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: progress action hope assurance growth change self-improvement

Character is developed one positive action at a time. Therefore nothing is actually trivial in our lives. To grow in character development, pay attention to seemingly trivial matters. Someone who grows from each minor life event will eventually reach high levels of character perfection.
Rabbi Zelig Pliskin 9/16/98 Daily Lift mailing list
Categories: character integrity growth change self-improvement actions choices

The greatest discovery of my generation is that man can alter his life simply by altering his attitude of mind.
William James Words for All Occasions
Categories: attitude choice optimismist optimistic success self-improvement change

The art of living lies less in eliminating our troubles than in growing with them.
Bernard M. Baruch The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: growth self-improvement acceptance problems troubles difficulties adversity

One can spend a lifetime assigning blame, find the cause 'out there' for all the troubles that exist. Contrast this with the 'responsible attitude' of confronting the situation, bad or good, and instead of asking, 'What caused the trouble? Who was to blame?' asking 'How can I handle this present situation to make the most of it? What can I salvage here?'
Abraham Maslow Thoughts on Leadership
Categories: blame responsibility choice personal growth self-improvement change

Growth in personality occurs as a consequence of meeting conflicts and impasses head on, and reconciling them. Interpersonal conflicts and impasses constitute problems which require solutions so that a satisfying relationship may be maintained. Whenever a person encounters a problem in his everyday living, he is obliged to vary his behavior until he discovers some mode of responding which is successful in achieving a solution.
Sidney Jourard Thoughts on Leadership
Categories: personal growth conflicts relationships marriage change self-improvement

Most people live, whether physically, intellectually, or morally, in a very restricted circle of their being. They make use of a very small portion of their possible consciousness, and of their soul's resources in general, much like a man who, out of his whole bodily organism, should get into the habit of using and moving only his little finger. Great emergencies and crises show us how much greater our vital resources are than we had supposed.
William James You Can't Afford the Luxury of a Negative Thought
Categories: potential self-improvement growth adversity challenges obstacles problems

Our thoughts create our reality--not instantly, necessarily, as in "Poof! There it is"--but eventually. Where we put our focus--our inner and outer vision--is the direction we tend to go. That's our desire, our intention.
Peter McWilliams You Can't Afford the Luxury of a Negative Thought
Categories: vision ideas goals success desire change self-improvement

The highest possible stage in moral culture is when we recognize that we ought to control our thoughts.
Charles Darwin Peter McWilliams
Categories: self-control morality ethics self-improvement growth maturity thoughts

The man who doesn't read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them.
Mark Twain 1911 Best Things Anybody Ever Said
Categories: reading education personal growth self-improvement knowledge literacy

As a progressive and evolving being, man is where he is that he may learn that he may grow; and as he learns the spiritual lesson which any circumstance contains for him, it passes away and gives place to other circumstances.
James Allen As a Man Thinketh
Categories: growth self-improvement self-awareness circumstances adversity problems difficulties challenges

We all have obstacles to overcome. I have come to understand also that there are many people willing to accept and help you, if only you first accept and help yourself. It's true. If you are an angry person, the hostility drives people away from you, but if you are at peace and have confidence in yourself,, people are drawn to you.
Stedman Graham You Can Make It Happen : A Nine-Step Plan for Success
Categories: problems challenges difficulties relationships self-acceptance self-awareness self-improvement self-confidence

In order to grasp the reality, we must see the possibilities. In the present, a formulation of the possibilities is the area in which I gain uncertainty concerning what I decide; without a vision of the possibilities, I act blindly; only a knowledge of the possibilities enables me to know what I am actually doing.
Karl Jaspers Thoughts on Leadership
Categories: possibilities potential personal growth dreams vision mission self-improvement

The aims and ideals that move us are generated by imagination. But they are not made out of imaginary stuff. They are made out of the hard stuff of the world of physical and social experience.
John Dewey Thoughts on Leadership
Categories: ideals morals vision mission experience personal growth self-improvement

Happiness comes only when we push our brains and hearts to the farthest reaches of which we are capable.
Leo C. Rosten The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness challenge fulfillment dreams goals vision work self-improvement

What's vital about our creative process is that we learn to use it, to nurture it and express it in our daily lives.
C. Diane Ealy The Woman's Book of Creativity (The Business of Life)
Categories: creativity growth change self-improvement self-nurture talents abilities self-expression

Nothing is unthinkable, nothing impossible to the balanced person, provided it comes out of the needs of life and is dedicated to life's further development.
Lewis Mumford The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: potential capacity capability self-improvement continuing education growth learning

Doing is significantly different than not doing. Dong not only "gets things done," it teaches lessons you cannot possibly learn theoretically and can loosen even the most stubbornly entrenched feelings.
Carol Lloyd Creating a Life Worth Living
Categories: work effort action success achievement learning growth emotions self-improvement

Commitment is the cornerstone of creative change.
Michael Gelb and Tony Buzan Lessons from the Art of Juggling; How to Achieve Your Full Potential in Business, Learning and Life
Categories: commitment goal vision mission change self-improvement growth determination persevere

The forces of idealism and realism tug at each other in all human activities, personal, social and national, and real progress is made possible by the proper mix of these two ingredients, so that the clay is kept in the ideal pliable, plastic condition, half moist and half dry, not hardened and unmanageable, nor dissolving into mud.
Lin Yutang The Importance of Living
Categories: idealism realism reality dream progress growth self-improvement priorities balance

Many people assume that mental and physical abilities necessarily decline with age, that we are, after age twenty-five, losing significant brain capacity on a daily basis.
In reality, the average brain is capable of improving with age.
Michael Gelb and Tony Buzan Lessons from the Art of Juggling; How to Achieve Your Full Potential in Business, Learning and Life
Categories: age aging learning education self-improvement growth thought mental processes senility

It is much more difficult to judge oneself than to judge others. If you succeed in judging yourself rightly, then you are indeed a man of true wisdom.
Antoine De Saint-Exupery The Little Prince
Categories: self-awareness self-knowledge criticism critics judgementalism perfectionism perfectionist self-improvement growth

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

There was never a time when so much official effort was being expended to produce happiness, and probably never a time when so little attention was paid by the individual to creating the personal qualities that make for it. What one misses most today is the evidence of widespread personal determination to develop a character that will in itself, given any reasonable odds, make for happiness. Our whole emphasis is on the reform of living conditions, of increased wages, of controls on the economic structure--the government approach--and so little on man improving himself.
William Ogden, 1945 Light from Many Lamps
Categories: happiness joy meaning fulfillment character self-determination self-improvement attitude growth change

Did you ever hear of a man who had striven all his life faithfully and singly toward an object and in no measure obtained it? If a man constantly aspires, is he not elevated?
Henry David Thoreau Light from Many Lamps
Categories: success work effort vision goal failure self-improvement growth mission

Our business in life is not to get ahead of others but to get ahead of ourselves--to break our own records, to outstrip our yesterdays by our today, to do our work with more force than before.
Stewart B. Johnson The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: work success achievement attainment competition competitive vision self-improvement growth

Give yourself an even greater challenge than the one you are trying to master and you will develop the powers necessary to overcome the original difficulty.
William J. Bennett The Book of Virtues
Categories: challenge learning overcome problem-solving self-improvement growth goal setting

Can't act. Can't sing. Slightly bald. Can dance a little.
Goldwyn talent scout's assessment of Fred Astaire The Penguin Dictionary of Twentieth-Century Quotations
Categories: talent ability capability judgement appearances perservere determination self-improvement growth

You need only claim the events of your life to make yourself yours. When you truly possess all you have been and done...you are fierce with reality.
Florida Scott Maxwell "All the Way Down" by Parker J. Palmer in the September/October 1998 Weavings: Woven Together in Love
Categories: growth learning self-improvement self-acceptance past history understanding reality living

From Freud we learned that the past exists now in the person. Now we must learn, from growth theory and self-actualization theory that the future also now exists in the person in the form of ideals, hopes, duties, tasks, plans, goals, unrealized potentials, mission, fate, destiny, etc. One for whom no future exists is reduced to the concrete, to hopelessness, to emptiness.
Abraham Maslow Thoughts on Leadership
Categories: personal growth self-improvement potential vision dreams goals mission future

The quality of life does not depend on happiness alone, but also on what one does to be happy. If one fails to develop goals that give meaning to one's existence, if one does not use the mind to its fullest, then good feelings fulfill just a fraction of the potential we possess. A person who achieves contentment by withdrawing from the world to 'cultivate his own garden,' like Voltaire's Candide cannot be said to lead an excellent life. Without dreams, without risks, only a trivial semblance of living can be achieved.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi Finding Flow: The Psychololgy of Engagement With Everyday Life
Categories: happiness fulfillment work goals mission self-improvement dreams risks courage

Celebrate being alive every day. Live your highest aspirations; learn what you always wanted to learn. Don't wait until you get hit by a truck or acquire a terminal illness to change the things that prevent you from living your life to the full. Whatever your habits, whatever your age, you can change...you can learn.
Michael Gelb and Tony Buzan Lessons from the Art of Juggling; How to Achieve Your Full Potential in Business, Learning and Life
Categories: change growth self-improvement breaking habits joy happiness happy fulfillment meaning

The only reason to compete is to improve yourself.
Walter Anderson The Confidence Course: Sevens Steps to Self-Fulfillment
Categories: competition winning growth learning stretching risk courage bravery testing self-improvement

Forget the resolutions. Forget control and discipline...too much work. Instead try experimenting. Go in search of something to fall in love with...something about yourself, your career, your spouse.
Dale Dauten 'Charming the brain may allow changes' by Dale Dauten (Arizona Republic 1/7/99)
Categories: love joy attitude gratitude change growth self-improvement resolutions relationships success excellence

It's always wise to raise questions about the most obvious and simple assumptions.
C. West Churchman Words for All Occasions
Categories: innovation imagination assumptions assume assuming wisdom growth improvement success achievement

Each thought that is welcomed and recorded is a nest egg, by the side of which more will be laid.
Henry David Thoreau The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: journaling thought diary self-improvement growth education writing write wisdom investment

Learn how to feel joy.
Seneca The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness choice attitude depression sadness happy unhappiness unhappy learning growth self-improvement

Old places and old persons in their turn, when spirit dwells in them, have an intrinsic vitality of which youth is incapable, precisely, the balance and wisdom that come from long perspectives and broad foundations.
George Santayana Webster's New World Dictionary of Quotations
Categories: aging elderly aged spirituality balance wisdom growth self-improvement perspective vision education

The "Inside-Out" approach to personal and self; even more fundamentally, to start with the most inside part of self - with your paradigms, your character, and your motives. The inside-out approach says that private victories precede public victories, that making and keeping promises to ourselves precedes making and keeping promises to others. It says it is futile to put personality ahead of character, to try to improve relationships with others before improving ourselves.
Stephen Covey The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
Categories: effectiveness relationship growth change paradigms character motives victory promises personality self-improvement

It's time we put thoughts of lack behind us. It's time for us to discover the secrets of the stars, to sail to an uncharted land, to open up a new heaven where our spirits can soar. But first we'll have to make changes. And lasting change does not happen overnight. Lasting change happens in infinitesimal increments: a day, an hour, a minute, a heartbeat at a time.
Sarah Ban Breathnach Simple Abundance
Categories: worry stress anxiety greed want poverty discovery soul happiness joy change self-improvement habits

When we can't access our inner resources, we come to the flawed conclusion that happiness and fulfillment come only from external events. That's because external events usually bring with them some sort of change. And so we've learned to rely on circumstances outside ourselves for forward or backward momentum as we hurtle through life. But we don't have to do that any longer. We can learn to be the catalysts for our own change.
Sarah Ban Breathnach Simple Abundance
Categories: change self-improvement growth self-discovery self-awareness happiness emotion mood fulfillment meaning purpose

In the day of prosperity be joyful, but in the day of adversity consider.
King Solomon Ecclesiastes 7:14
Categories: attitude learning growth self-improvement challenges problems difficulty difficulties obstacles meditation prayer

To know how to grow old is the master work of wisdom, and one of the most difficult chapters in the great art of living.
Henri Frederick Amiel Words for All Occasions
Categories: age aging old senior citizens elders elderly wisdom understanding development growth change self-improvement

We are all capable of change and growth; we just need to know where to begin.
Blaine Lee The Power Principle: Influence with Honor
Categories: self-improvement change growth learning character guidance potential excellence mentoring coaching planning

The young man of native ability, (with) the will to work and good personality will, in the long run, get the equivalent of a college education in the tasks he will set for himself. If he has ability and determination, he will find ways to learn and to get ahead.
Edward G. Seubert The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: ability determination work personality character education goal self-improvement learning experience success

Aging is a life-spanning process of growth and development from birth to death. Old age is an integral part of the whole, bringing fulfillment and self-actualization. I regard aging as a triumph, a result of strength and survivorship.
Margaret Kuhn Words for All Occasions
Categories: aging age growing old elderly senior citizen growth change self-improvement strength courage bravery

...even without success, creative persons find joy in a job well done. Learning for its own sake is rewarding...
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention
Categories: meaning purpose fulfillment learning education growth self-improvement creativity creative expression joy work recognition

Happy are they that hear their detractions, and can put them to mending.
William Shakespeare (Much Ado About Nothing) Bartlett's Familiar Quotations
Categories: change growth criticism learning wisdom bad habits imperfections sins character self-improvement self-awareness self-knowledge

Life is complex.
Each one of us must make his own path through life. There are no self-help manuals, no formulas, no easy answers. The right road for one is the wrong road for another...The journey of life is not paved in blacktop; it is not brightly lit, and it has no road signs. It is a rocky path through the wilderness.
M. Scott Peck Further Along the Road Less Traveled
Categories: life learning spirituality growth self-improvement direction meaning easy answers difficulties problems challenges

Failure is just part of the culture of innovation. Accept it and become stronger.
Albert Yu Fast Company magazine, December 1998, p. 132.
Categories: mistakes errors failure success personal growth self-improvement creativity innovate creation creative process

It is never too late to be what you might have been.
George Eliot The Thinker's Way: 8 Steps to a Richer Life
Categories: purpose goal fulfillment aging regret future choices regrets change self-improvement personal growth

Success is 99 percent failure.
Soichiro Honda Bits & Pieces magazine
Categories: success achievement vision goal planning mistakes failures learning growth progress change self-improvement

Persons and societies do not submit passively to surroundings and events. They make choices as to the places where they live and the activities in which they engage--choices based on what they want to be, to do and to become. Furthermore, persons and societies often change their goals and ways; they can even retrace their steps and start in a new direction if they believe they are on a wrong course. Thus, whereas animal life is prisoner of biological evolution which is essential irreversible, human life has the wonderful freedom of social evolution which is rapidly reversible and creative. Wherever human beings are concerned, trend is not destiny.
Rene Dubos Celebration of Life
Categories: choice responsiblity direction meaning purpose fulfillment change destiny evolve personality habits self-improvement growth

How we see and hold the full range of our experiences in our minds and in our hearts makes an enormous difference in the quality of this journey we are on, and what it means to us. It can influence where we go, what happens, what we learn, and how we feel along the way.
Jon Kabat-Zinn Everyday Blessings: The Inner Work of Mindful Parenting
Categories: attitude gratitude thought joy happiness emotions life choices decisions learning growth self-improvement experiences perception

You never will be the person you can be if pressure, tension and discipline are taken out of your life.
James G. Bilkey The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: stress tension anxiety deadlines work business challenges problems obstacles schedules difficulties growth self-improvement

If I accept you as you are, I will make you worse; however if I treat you as though you are what you are capable of becoming, I help you become that.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: acceptance expectations vision leadership mentorship education learning parenting growth mentoring challenge spur self-improvement

Success breeds success. Attend to your mind's most joyful, effective discovery process. Bolster the self-beliefs that add confidence, lucidity, and tenacity to your efforts. You'll get more out of what you notice, so heed whatever gives you wisdom.
Marsha Sinetar To Build the Life You Want, Create the Work You Love: The Spiritual Dimension of Entrepreneuring
Categories: self-confidence self-esteem optimism positive thinking success achievement joy happiness work effort learning knowledge wisdom growth self-improvement

We can accomplish almost anything within our ability if we but think that we can! Every great achievement was first carefully thought out...Think--but to a purpose. Think constructively. Think as you read. Think as you listen. Think as you travel and your eyes reveal new situations. Think as you work daily at your desk, or in the field, or while strolling. Think to rise and improve your place in life. There can be no advancement or success without serious thought.
George Matthew Adams The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: success accomplishment achievement thought planning vision mission goal thinking reading listening work effort exercise self-improvement growth

To live content with small means; to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion; to be worthy...to study hard, think quietly, talk gently, act frankly; to listen to the stars and birds, to babes and sages, with open heart; to bear all cheerfully, do all bravely, await occasions, hurry never; in a word to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common.
William Henry Channing Light from Many Lamps
Categories: possessions materialism moderation self-worth character thoughtfulness kindness honesty meditation self-improvement growth patience change maturation mature spirituality

The journey of spiritual growth is a long one.
M. Scott Peck The Road Less Traveled
Categories: life growth change spirituality perfectionism self-improvement patience life-long learning

Knowledge is the food of the soul.
Plato Alexandra Stoddard's Book of Days
Categories: knowledge learning education wisdom soul self-improvement self-nurture growth spirituality growth change

Growth of the soul is our goal, and
Joan Borysenko, Ph.D. Handbook for the Soul
Categories: personal growth self-improvement change love nature forgiveness service volunteerism love action

Contemplate the workings of this world, listen to the words of the wise, and take all that is good as your own. With this as your base, open your own door to truth. Do not overlook the truth that is right before you. Study how water flows in a valley stream, smoothly and freely between the rocks. Also learn from the holy books and wise people. Everything--even mountains, rivers, plants, and trees--should be your teacher.
Morihei Ueshiba The Art of Peace
Categories: nature wisdom learning self-improvement growth truth wisdom

Every day I learn more than I teach,

Virginia Church Treasury of Women's Quotations
Categories: education experience growth aging attitude self-improvement growth

The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.
Alvin Toffler Lessons from the Art of Juggling; How to Achieve Your Full Potential in Business, Learning and Life
Categories: learning education self-improvement leadership flexibility continuing education

I've never been afraid to fail.
Michael Jordan, at the press conference where he announced he was leaving the NBA to pursue a career in baseball. Lessons from the Art of Juggling; How to Achieve Your Full Potential in Business, Learning and Life
Categories: success failure mistakes growth risk daring self-improvement dreams fear courage strength bravery stretching safety long-term vision

One of the most basic issues we face in our lives is the feeling of failure or guilt. I come froma minority group, families where F stood for feedback or flow and not failure. F's on a test meant a failed test and not a failure as a human being. F's helped me find my place in the universe because the family attitude was, "It was meant to be." And now we would see what good would come of this event.
Bernie S. Siegel, MD Love, Medicine & Miracles
Categories: mistakes failures self-image guilt errors childrearing children family pressures expectations perspective learning education growth self-improvement self-acceptance patience perfectionist

If there is a purpose in life at all, there must be a purpose in suffering and in dying. But no man can tell another what this purpose is. Each must find out for himself, and must accept the responsibility that his answer prescribes. If he succeeds he will continue to grow in spite of all indignities.
Gordon W. Allport, from the Introduction Man's Search for Meaning
Categories: pain suffering terminal illness disability cancer purpose meaning life death sickness die growth self-improvement learning adversity challenges problems difficulties

... be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books are written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now.
Ranier Maria Rilke Simple Abundance
Categories: mystery discovery self-discovery self-awareness growth self-improvement learning experiencing questions control issues future acceptance faith

Your own soul is nourished when you are kind; it is destroyed when you are cruel.
King Solomon Proverbs 11:17 (The Living Bible)
Categories: soul spirituality heart spirit growth self-improvement self-destruction cruelty meaness nasty nastiness sarcasm kindness gentleness love agape words speech actions

...the sources of the truest truths are inevitably profoundly personal.
Saul Bellow The Closing of the American Mind
Categories: truth true insight spirituality growth self-knowledge self-awareness honesty transformation change self-improvement life change meditation prayer self-discovery

...leaders are people who are able to express themselves fully...they know who they are, what their strengths and weaknesses are, and how to fully deploy their strengths and compensate for their weaknesses. They also know what they want, why they want it, and how to communicate what they want to others, in order to gain compensation and support. Finally, they know how to achieve their goals. The key to full self-expression is understanding one's self and the world, and the key to understanding is learning--from one's own life and experience.
Warren Bennis On Becoming a Leader
Categories: success achievement excellence leadership self-expression self-actualization self-awareness communication goals planning learning growth self-improvement authenticity self-awareness leading by example vision mission

Beauty can't amuse you, but brainwork--reading, writing, thinking--can.
Helen Gurley Brown Treasury of Women's Quotations
Categories: beauty appearances character books philosophy looks vanity growth self-improvement learning education books journaling study intellect mind thought wisdom knowledge

To live content with small means; to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion; to be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy not rich; to study hard, think quietly, talk gently, act frankly; to listen to the stars and birds, to babes and sages, with open heart; to bear on cheerfully, do all bravely, awaiting occasions, worry never; in a word to, like the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common.
William Ellery Channing The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: necessities moderation authenticity character integrity work effort thought demeanor kindness honesty actions nature appreciation learning growth wisdom courage bravery stress anxiety self-improvement

The sea does not reward those who are too anxious, too greedy, or too impatient. To dig for treasures shows not only impatience and greed, but lack of faith. Patience, patience, patience, is what the sea teaches. Patience and faith. One should lie empty, open, choiceless as a beach--waiting for a gift from the sea.
Anne Morrow Lindbergh Gift from the Sea
Categories: patience hope faith belief prayer meditation quiet greedy impatience hurry stress anxiety worry learning growth self-improvement rest relaxation wait impatient insight education

A smooth sea never made a skilled mariner.
English proverb The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: difficulties challenges obstacles problems growth ability practice troubles adversity problems difficulty growth learning self-improvement skills problem-solving

...so often we look at a calendar of days as merely a symbol of the passage of time. We forget why we are on this earth. We forget that there is a reason for all of the pain and all of the struggle. We forget that we were put on earth to learn something. If everything were perfect in this life, we would never learn anything new. We would not be able to elevate our spirits through the events that happen to us.
Lynn V. Andrews Walk in Balance
Categories: growth meaning of life purpose fulfillment pain challenges problems time struggle despair depression challenges adversity learning self-improvement problems illness disability