QUOTATIONS TO HELP YOU LIVE A GOOD LIFE

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Jack Kerouac

It ain’t whatcha write, it’s the way atcha write it.

Writing

Grace Murray Hopper

A ship in port is safe, but that is not what ships are built for. Sail out to sea and do new things.

Action
Purpose

Karen Lamb

A year from now you may wish you had started today.

Outcomes

Lucy Maud Montgomery

As a rule, I am very careful to be shallow and conventional where depth and originality are wasted.

Authenticity
Energy

Simone Weil

Beauty always promises, but never gives anything.

Authenticity
Integrity
Values

Zen saying

Before you study Zen, a bowl is a bowl and tea is tea. While you are studying Zen, a bowl is no longer a bowl and tea is no longer tea. After you have studied Zen, a bowl is again a bowl and tea is tea.

Mindfulness

David Lloyd George

Don’t be afraid to take a big step when one is indicated. You can’t cross a chasm in two small jumps.

Action

Karl Weick

Fight as if you’re right, listen as if you’re wrong.

Integrity

Henry Louis Mencken

For every problem, there is one solution which is simple, neat, and wrong.

Business
Success

C. S. Lewis

Good and evil both increase at compound interest. That is why the little decisions you and I make every day are of such infinite importance.

Action
Identity

Winston Churchill

He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.

Authenticity
Values

Friedrich Nietzsche

Who would learn to fly must first learn to stand and walk and run and climb and dance; one cannot fly into flying.

Mindfulness
Spirituality

Alice Walker, The Way Forward is with a Broken Heart

Healing begins where the wound was made.

Mindfulness

Bill George

High tolerance for failure, low tolerance for incompetence.

Leadership
Success

Murray Gell-Mann

History shows us clearly that humanity is moved forward not by people who stop every little while to try to gauge the ultimate success or failure of their ventures, but by those who think deeply about what is right and then put all their energy into doing it.

Success

Bill Gates

I am an impatient optimist. The world is getting better, but it’s not getting better fast enough, and it’s not getting better for everyone.

Alignment
Identity
Purpose

Vincent van Gogh

I am seeking, I am striving, I am in it with all my heart.

Energy
Identity
Integrity

Cicero

I criticize by creation, not by finding fault.

Action
Energy
Leadership

Arthur Rimbaud

I decided to be a genius. I decided to originate the future.

Identity

Jack Benny

I don’t deserve this award, but I have arthritis and I don’t deserve that either.

Authenticity

Marcel Duchamp

I have forced myself to contradict myself in order to avoid conforming to my own taste.

Authenticity
Integrity

Oscar Wilde

I have found that all ugly things are made by those who strive to make something beautiful, and that all beautiful things are made by those who strive to make something useful.

Outcomes
Values

Raymond Chandler

I needed a drink, I needed a lot of life insurance, I needed a vacation, I needed a home in the country. What I had was a coat, a hat, and a gun.

Purpose

Robert H. Jackson

I used to say that, as Solicitor General, I made three arguments of every case:  First came the one that I planned, as I thought, logical, coherent, complete. Second was the one actually presented— interrupted, incoherent, disjointed, disappointing. The third was the utterly devastating argument that I thought of after going to bed that night.

Presence
Time

Paul Krugman

I was disillusioned to learn that powerful people prefer to take advice from those who make them feel comfortable rather than those who will force them to think hard.

Leadership
Values

Heather McHugh

I write poems to wake myself up, or to preserve a suddenly lit, awakened state. Of dreams, as of taste, too many sweets spoil the sense. It’s not nice dreams I’m yearning for; it’s true dreams.

Values
Writing

Louisa May Alcott

I’m not afraid of storms, for I’m learning how to sail my ship.

Alignment
Energy
Perspective

Arthur C. Clarke

If an elderly but distinguished scientist says that something is possible they are almost certainly right, but if they say that it is impossible they are very probably wrong.

Time

E. B. White

If the world were merely seductive, that would be easy. If it were merely challenging, that would be no problem. But I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world, and a desire to enjoy the world. That makes it hard to plan the day.

Happiness

Frederick Douglass

If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are those who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning.

Values

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