Quotes

QUOTES

I think it is safe to say that quotes and sayings impact all of our lives. Certainly, there are some that are more profound than others. There is nothing better than a statement that provides a comprehensive explanation in a pithy (i.e. tersely cogent) manner. Some individuals are more quotable than others once you start studying quotes and observe the frequency of quoting. Some of the more profound quotes have been written by men such as Abraham Lincoln, Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, and Mark Twain to name a few.

I encourage you to memorize quotes. You will find them useful in conversation, public speaking engagements, and most importantly they can be used to motivate you and others to achieve great things. I also recommend that you learn more about the individuals who have provided many of the quotes listed on this page (and certainly other resources as

Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it. (Dwight D. Eisenhower)

The chief cause of failure and unhappiness is trading what you want most for what you want now. (Zig Ziglar)

There are people who make things happen, there are people who watch things happen, and there are people who wonder what happened. To be successful, you need to be a person who makes things happen. (Jim Lovell)

A pessimist is one who makes difficulties of his opportunities and an optimist is one who makes opportunities of his difficulties. (Harry S. Truman)

One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man. (Elbert Hubbard)

The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him. (Leo Tolstoy, 1897)

Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people. (Eleanor Roosevelt)

In business it is the aggressive man who continually has his eye on his own interest, who succeeds. Business is merely a form of warfare in which each combatant strives to get the business away from his competitors and at the same time keep them from getting what he already has. No man has ever been successful in business who was not aggressive, self-assertive and even a little bit selfish perhaps. There is nothing reprehensible in an aggressive disposition, so long as it is not carried to excess, for such men make the world and its affairs move… (Wilbur Wright)

Beware of no man more than of yourself; we carry our worst enemies within us. (Charles H. Spurgeon)

The discipline you learn and character you build from setting and achieving a goal can be more valuable than the achievement of the goal itself. (Bo Bennett)

…the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do. (Steve Jobs)

…if you’re not busy being born, you’re busy dying. (Bob Dylan)

Talent is God given. Be humble. Fame is man-given. Be grateful. Conceit is self-given. Be careful. (John Wooden)

The Andrew Principle is when the incompetence of an organization exceeds the incompetence of certain individuals within that organization, thereby allowing their promotion within said organization. (Chris Alexander)

Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm. (Winston Churchill)

We can’t help everyone, but everyone can help someone. (Ronald Reagan)

The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why. (Mark Twain)

I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear. (Nelson Mandela)

Hardship often prepares an ordinary person for an extraordinary destiny. (C. S. Lewis)

Character is like a tree and reputation like a shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing. (Abraham Lincoln)

You be the change you want. (Brent Vyvial)

Never continue in a job you don’t enjoy. If you’re happy in what you’re doing, you’ll like yourself, you’ll have inner peace. And if you have that, along with physical health, you will have had more success than you could possibly have imagined. (Johnny Carson)

Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it’s thinking of yourself less. (Rick Warren)

Take advantage of every opportunity to practice your communication skills so that when important occasions arise, you will have the gift, the style, the sharpness, the clarity, and the emotions to affect other people. (Jim Rohn)

Change: We generally change ourselves for one of two reasons: inspiration or desperation. (Jim Rohn)

Activity: The few who do are the envy of the many who watch. (Jim Rohn)

Success: Success is what you attract by the person you become. (Jim Rohn)

The final test of a gentleman is his respect for those who can be of no possible service to him. (William Lyon Phelps)

Fame is a vapor, popularity an accident, and riches take wings. Only one thing endures and that is character. (Horace Greeley)

The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary. (Vince Lombardi)

Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfills the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things. (Winston Churchill)

Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves; vanity, to what we would have others think of us. (Jane Austen)

This is as true in everyday life as it is in battle: we are given one life and the decision is ours whether to wait for circumstances to make up our mind, or whether to act, and in acting, to live. (Omar N. Bradley)

I do not think that there is any other quality so essential to success of any kind as the quality of perseverance. It overcomes almost everything, even nature. (John D. Rockefeller)
I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it. (George Bernard Shaw)

Neither a wise man nor a brave man lies down on the tracks of history to wait for the train of the future to run over him. (Dwight D. Eisenhower)

Before success comes in any man’s life, he’s sure to meet with much temporary defeat and, perhaps some failures. When defeat overtakes a man, the easiest and the most logical thing to do is to quit. That’s exactly what the majority of men do. (Napoleon Hill)

Sometimes you will never know the value of a moment until it becomes a memory. (Dr. Seuss)

Fear stifles our thinking and actions. It creates indecisiveness that results in stagnation. I have known talented people who procrastinate indefinitely rather than risk failure. Lost opportunities cause erosion of confidence, and the downward spiral begins. (Charles Stanley)

Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers. It may not be difficult to store up in the mind a vast quantity of facts within a comparatively short time, but the ability to form judgments requires the severe discipline of hard work and the tempering heat of experience and maturity. (Calvin Coolidge)

Get correct views of life, and learn to see the world in its true light. It will enable you to live pleasantly, to do good, and, when summoned away, to leave without regret. (Robert E. Lee)

One measure of your success will be the degree to which you build up others who work with you. While building up others, you will build up yourself. (James E. Casey)

I don’t believe one grows older. I think that what happens early on in life is that at a certain age one stands still and stagnates. (T. S. Eliot)

Where is the Life we have lost in living? (T. S. Eliot)

You will never do anything in this world without courage. It is the greatest quality of the mind next to honor. (Aristotle)
Start by doing what’s necessary; then do what’s possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible. (St. Francis of Assisi)
In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock. (Thomas Jefferson)

We should not look back unless it is to derive useful lessons from past errors, and for the purpose of profiting by dearly bought experience. (George Washington)
Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with important matters. (Albert Einstein)
Success is walking from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm. (Winston Churchill)
It always seems impossible until its done. (Nelson Mandela)

People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing – that’s why we recommend it daily. (Zig Ziglar)

The highest calling of leadership is to unlock the potential of others. (Carly Fiorina, Former CEO of HP)
You have not lived today until you have done something for someone who can never repay you. (John Bunyan)
Giving frees us from the familiar territory of our own needs by opening our mind to the unexplained worlds occupied by the needs of others. (Barbara Bush)

Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power. (Abraham Lincoln)
Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat. (Theodore Roosevelt)
The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place. (George Bernard Shaw)
You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today. (Abraham Lincoln)
We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses. (Abraham Lincoln)
If you want to know what a man’s like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals. (J. K. Rowling)
Once you demand respect, you lose all likelihood of achieving it. (Ron Scrivner)
Everyone may not be good, but there’s always something good in everyone. Never judge anyone shortly because every saint has a past and every sinner has a future. (Oscar Wilde)
The essence of optimism is that it takes no account of the present, but it is a source of inspiration, of vitality and hope where others have resigned; it enables a man to hold his head high, to claim the future for himself and not to abandon it to his enemy. (Dietrich Bonhoeffer)
Out of every one hundred men, ten shouldn’t even be there, eighty are just targets, nine are the real fighters, and we are lucky to have them, for they make the battle. Ah, but the one, one is a warrior, and he will bring the others back. (Heraclitus)