Personal Philosophies


"I don't think it makes sense to strive for perfection. Perfection is not attainable. I believe totally in striving for excellence, and I think there is a great deal of difference between the two. Although we strive for excellence, we set sensible goals because one of the most frustrating things in the world is to set our goals so high that we have no chance of reaching them." - Bart Starr

"I must learn to love the fool in me--the one who feels too much, talks too much, takes too many chances, wins sometimes and loses often, lacks self-control, loves and hates, hurts and gets hurt, . . . laughs and cries. It alone protects me against that utterly self-controlled, masterful tyrant whom I also harbor and who would rob me of the human aliveness, humility, and dignity but for my fool." - Theodore Rubin

“There will be no end to the troubles of states, or of humanity itself, till philosophers become kings in this world, or till those we now call kings and rulers really and truly become philosophers, and political power and philosophy thus come into the same hands” - Plato

"As a beauty I'm not a great star. Others are handsomer far;
but my face - I don't mind it because I'm behind it; it's the folks out in front that I jar. - A.H. Euwer

"A person needs your full permission before they can make you feel inferior." - Eleanor Roosevelt

"You come to love not by finding the perfect person, but by seeing an imperfect person perfectly."

"To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

"I will give my strong right hand to him who knows not the clasp of friendship I will sing my sweetest songs to him who has heard naught but discord. I will give my fairest roses to him in whose life the flowers have never bloomed. I will give to the heart-hungry my life's best love." - Anonymous

Favorites Quotes


LEO BUSCAGLIA
*Perfect love is rare indeed - for to be a lover will require that you continually have the subtlety of the very wise, the flexibility of the child, the sensitivity of the artist, the understanding of the philosopher, the acceptance of the saint, the tolerance of the scholar and the fortitude of the certain.
*A single rose can be my garden . . . a single friend, my world.
*Love is life. And if you miss love, you miss life.
*The fact that I can plant a seed and it becomes a flower, share a bit of knowledge and it becomes another's, smileat someone and receive a smile in return, are to me continual spiritual exercises.
*The majority of us lead quiet, unheralded lives as we pass through this world. There will most likely be no ticker-tape parades for us, no monuments created in our honor. But that does not lessen our possible impact, for there are scores of people waiting for someone just like us to come along; people who will appreciate out compassion, our unique talents. Someone who will live a happier life merely because we took the time to share what we had to give. Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest complement, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around. It's overwhelming to consider the continuous opportunities there are to make our love felt.
*Love is like a mirror. When you love another you become his mirror and he becomes yours . . . And reflecting each other's love, you see infinity.
*Worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow, it only saps today of its joy.
*Life lived for tomorrow wil always be just a day awar from being realized. *Change is the end result of all true learning.
*It is paradoxical that many educators and parents still differentiate a time for learning and a time for play without seeing the vital connection between them.
*One does not fall "in' or 'out' of love. One grows in love.

ELEANOR ROOSEVELT
*Many people will walk in and out of your life, but only true friends will leave footprints in your heart.
*To handle yourself, use your head; to handle others, use your heart.
*Anger is only one letter short of danger.
*Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.
*He who loses money, loses much; he who loses a friend, loses much more; he who loses faith loses all.
*Learn from the mistakes of other. You can't live long enough to make them all yourself.
*Do what you feel in your heart to be right - for you'll be criticized anyway. You'll be damned if you do, and damned if you don't.
*One thing life has taught me: if you are interested, you never have to look for new interests. They come to you. When you are genuinely interested in one thing, it will always lead to something else.
*You gain strength, courage and confidence by evey experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, 'I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.' You must do the thing you think you cannot do.

MAYA ANGELOU
*If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude. Don't complain.
*If you find it in your heart to care for somebody else, you will have succeeded.
*Since time is the one immaterial object we cannot influence - neither speed up nor slow down, add to or diminish - it is an imponderably valuable gift.
*The quality of strength lined with tenderness is an unbeatable combination, as are intelligence and necessity when unblunted by a formal education.
*We should all know that diversity makes for a rich tapestry, and we must understand that all the threads of the tapestry are equal in value no matter what their color.
*If we lose love and self respect for each other, this is how we finally die. *Words mean more than what is set down on paper. It takes the human voice to infuse them with deeper meaning.
*Nothing will work unless you do.
*Life loves to be taken by the lapel and told, 'I am with you kid, Let's go!

MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.
You may be 38 years old, as I happen to be, and one day, some great opportunity stand before you and calls you to stand up for some great principle, some great issue, some great cause. And you refuse to do it because you are afraid . . .You're afraid that you will lose your job, or you are afraid that you will be criticized, or that you will lose your popularity . . . and you're afraid that somebody will stab you or shoot at you, or bomb you house; so you refuse to take the stand. Well, you may go on and live until you are 90, but you're just as dead at 38 as you would be at 90, and the cessation of breathing in your life is but the belated announcement of an earlier death of the spirit.

The confidence which we have in ourselves gives birth to much of that which we have in others. - Le Rochefoucauld

Be courteous to all, but intimate with few; and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence. - George Washington

Confidence doesn't come out of nowhere. It's a result of something . . . hours and days and weeksand years of constant work and dedication. - Roger Staubach

With confidence, you can reach truly amazing heights; without confidence, even the simplest accomplishments are beyond your grasp. - Jim Loehr

If you have no confidence in self, you are twice defeated in the race of life. With confidence, you have won even before you have started. - Marcus Garvey

The most wasted of all days is one without laughter. - e. e. cummings

To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting. - e.e. cummings

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, Who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe is as good as dead: His eyes are closed. - Albert Einstein

... and we ourselves shall be loved for a while and forgotten. But the love will have been enough; all those impulses of love return to the love that made them. Even memory is not necessary for love. There is a land of the living and a land of the dead, and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning. - Thornton Wilder

One is remembered for what one does for others; not for what one does for self. - M.K. Soni

Tact is the art of building a fire under people without making their blood boil. - Franklin P. Jones

It was one of the rules which, above all others, made Benjamin Franklin the most amiable of men in society: never contradict anyone. - Thomas Jefferson

Try to do unto others as you would have them do to you, and do not be discouraged if they fail sometimes. It is much better that they should fail than you should. - Charles Dickens

Always be nice to people on the way up; because you'll meet the same people on the way down. - Wilson Mizner

If there is any one secret of success, it lies in the ability to get the other person's point of view and see things from that person's angle as well as from your own. - Henry Ford

The most important single ingredient in the formula of success is knowing how to get along with people. - Theodore Roosevelt

Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances. - Thomas Jefferson

Real fulfillment comes only when we first tune into our innner direction and divine guidance. That helps unite heaven and earth. - John Redfield
Only the weak are cruel. Gentleness can only be expected from the strong. - Leo Rosten

We are what we do repeatedly. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. - Aristotle

Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly. - Robert F. Kennedy

As is our confidence, so is our capacity. - William Hazlitt

Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall. - Confucious

Men do not stumble over mountains, but over molehills. - Confucious

Treat people as if they were what they ought to be and you help them to become what they are capable of being. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Ask not what your teammates can do for you. Ask what you can do for your teammates. - Magic Johnson

The moment we break faith with one another, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out. - James Baldwin

It is amazing how much can be accomplished if no one cares who gets the credit. - John Wooden

All that we are is the result of what we have thought. The mind is everything. What we think, we become. - Buddha

It's lack of faith that makes people afraid of meeting challenges, and I believe in myself. - Muhammad Ali

Nurture your mind with great thoughts, for you will never go any higher than you think. - Benjamin Disraeli

Have confidence that if you have done a little thing well, you can do a bigger thing well, too. - Storey

Don't sacrifice your life to work and ideals. The most important things in life are human relations. I found that out too late. - Katharinde Susannah Prichard

Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will find them gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer. - Rainer Maria Rilke

True, we love life, not because we are used to living, but because we are used to loving. There is always some madness in love, but there is also always some reason in madness. - Friedrich Nietzsche

Life in abundance comes only through great love. - Elbert Hubbard

Life without love is like a tree without blossom and fruit. - Kahlil Gibran

There are two ways to live your life. One is as thought nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle. - Albert Einstein

There are two ways of spreading Light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.

A Short Course in Human Relations
The 6 most important words: I admit I was wrong.
The 5 most important words: You did a great job.
The 4 most important words: What do you think?
The 3 most important words: Could you please.
The 2 most important words: Thank you!
The most important word: we
The least important word: I

1. Take time to Work It is the price of success.
2. Take time to Think It is the source of power.
3. Take time to Play It is the secret of youth.
4. Take time to Read It is the foundation of knowledge.
5. Take time to Worship It is the highway of reverence and washes the dust of earth from our eyes.
6. Take time to Help and Enjoy Friends It is the source of happiness.
7. Take time to Love It is the one sacrament of life.
8. Take time to Dream It hitches the soul to the stars.
9. Take time to Laugh It is the singing that helps with life's loads.
10. Take time to Plan It is the secret of being able to have time to take time for the first 9 things.

Be careful of your thoughts...for your thoughts become your words.
Be careful of your words...for your words become your actions.
Be careful of your actions...for your actions become your habits.
Be careful of your habits...for your habits become your character.
Be careful of your character...for your character becomes your destiny.
Do not undermine your worth by comparing yourself with others.
It is because we are different that each of us is special.
Do not set your goals by what other people deem important.
Only you know what is best for you.
Do not take for granted the things closest to your heart.
Cling to them as you would your life, for without them, life would be meaningless.
Do not let your years slip through your fingers by living in the past, not the future.
By living one day at a time, you live all the days of your life.
Do not give up when you still have something to give.
Nothing is really over until the moment you stop trying.
Do not be afraid to encounter risks.
It is by taking chances that we learn how to be brave.
Do not shut love out of your life by saying it is impossible to find.
The quickest way to receive love is to give love; the fastest way to lose love is to hold it too tightly.
Do not dismiss your dreams.
To be without dreams is to be without hope; to be without hope is to be without purpose.
Do not run through life so fast that you forget not only where you have been, but also where you are going.
Life is not a race, but a journey to be savored each step of the way.

The Human Touch (Spencer Michael Free)
'Tis the human touch in this world that counts,
The touch of your hand in mine,
Which means far more to the fainting heart
Than shelter, bread, or wine;
For shelter is gone when night is o'er,
And bread lasts only a day,
But the touch of the hand and the sound of the voice
Sing on in the soul alway.

Rules for Being Human
1. You will receive a body. You may like it or hate it, but it will be yours for the entire period this time around.
2. You will learn lessons. You are enrolled in a full-time informal school called life. Each day in this school you will have the opportunity to learn what you most need to know. The lessons presented are often completely different from those you think you need.
3. There are no mistakes, only lessons. Growth is a process of trial and error, experimentation. The "failed" experiments are as much a part of the process as the experiment that ultimately "works". You learn as much from failure as you can from success.
4. A lesson is repeated until learned. A lesson will be presented to you in various forms until you have learned it. When you have learned it, (as evidenced by a change in your attitude and ultimately your behavior), you can go on to the next lesson.
5. Learning lessons does not end. There is no part of life that does not contain its lessons. If you are alive, there are additional lessons to be learned.
6. "There" is not better than "here". When your "there" has become a "here", you will simply obtain another "there" that will, again, look better than "here".
7. Others are merely mirrors of you. You cannot love or hate something about another person unless it reflects to you something you love or hate about yourself.When tempted to criticize others, ask yourself what behavior of yours they are mirroring.
8. What you make of life is up to you. You have all the tools and resources you need. What you create with them is up to you. Remember that through desires, goal-setting and right effort you can have anything you want, but not everything you want. Persistence is the key ingredient for success.
9. Your answers lie inside you. The answers to life's questions lie within you. All you need to do is ask, look, listen and trust.
10. You will forget all this.You will forget all the above rules unless you regularly practice some means of staying focused and grounded in the present. Your ego will continually try to trick you into blaming your past or becoming anxious about the realities of life.

"How To Be Unhappy"
1. Make little things bother you. Don't just let them, MAKE them.
2. Lose your perspective on things and keep it lost: don't put first things first.
3. Get yourself a good worry, one about which you cannot do anything.
4. Be a perfectionist, which means not that you work hard to do your best, but that you condemn yourself and others for not achieving perfection.
5. Be right. Be always right. Be the only one who is always right, and be rigid in your rightness.
6. Don't trust or believe people, or accept them at anything but their worst and weakest.
7. Be suspicious. Insist that others always have hidden motives.
8. Always compare yourself unfavorably to others. This guarantees instant misery.
9. Take personally everything that happens to you.
10. Don't give yourself whole-heartily to anyone or anything.
THAT OUGHTA DO IT!

"How To Be Happy" (Robert Louis Stevenson)
1. Make up your mind to be happy. Learn to find pleasure in simple things.
2. Make the best of your circumstances. No one has everything, and everyone has something of sorrow intermingled with gladness of life. The trick is to make the laughter outweigh the tears.
3. Don't take yourself too seriously. Don't think that somehow you should be protected from misfortune that befalls other people.
4. You can't please everybody. Don't let criticism worry you.
5. Don't let your neighbor set your standards. Be yourself.
6. Do the things you enjoy doing but stay out of debt.
7. Never borrow trouble. Imaginary things are harder to bear than real ones.
8. Since hate poisons the soul, do not cherish jealousy, enmity, grudges. Avoid people who make you unhappy.
9. Have many interests. If you can't travel, read about new places.
10. Don't hold post mortems. Don't spend your time brooding over sorrows or mistakes. Don't be one who never gets over things.
11. Do what you can for those less fortunate than yourself.
12. Keep busy at something. A busy person never has time to be unhappy.

SOURCES FOR DAILY MOTIVATIONAL QUOTES
http://www.famousdaves.com
http://www.greatday.com/motivate
http://home.att.net/~quotations/life.html
http://www.motivateus.com/thoughts of the day.htm
http://www.brainyquote.com
http://www.motivationalquotes.com
http://www.wow4u.com
http://www.health fitness tips.com/motivational quote
http://www.quotationspage.com
http://www.sbweb.com/prospeakers/quote.htm
http://www.quoteland.comwww.designedthinking.com/Articles/Thoughts/thoughts.html

Last updated: 7/11/07.
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