Words have power — and the ones in this post are guaranteed to challenge the way you think and perhaps even change the way you live. They have inspired me to choose life, persevere and live life to the full. Don’t give up just yet, your most amazing life is still ahead of you. Your very best work, project, experiences are in front of you, not behind you. Whether you feel stuck or just need a good dose of inspiration from great minds, these amazing quotes should do the trick.
If you are too afraid of failing you’ll keep your dreams on a leash. But if you overcome that fear, and jump out there fully willing to completely fail, you free your mind to dream up new adventures and goals for your life. Failure comes with trying. The magic happens outside your comfort zone. Get out your safety zone, because your success depends on it. Knowing that you’re only getting better with each new struggle you are not comfortable with can be an inspiration during those times when you feel like giving up.
1. It is a mistake for anyone to think he has lived too long in his old, unsatisfactory ways to make the great change. If you switch on the light in a dark room, it makes no difference how long it was dark because the light will still shine. Be teachable. That is the whole secret.– Vernon Howard
2. Follow your bliss. If you do follow your bliss, you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while waiting for you, and the life you ought to be living is the one you are living. I say, follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be. Wherever you are, if you are following your bliss, you are enjoying that refreshment, that life within you, all the time. – Joseph Campbell
3. Often the difference between a successful man and a failure is not one’s better abilities or ideas, but the courage that one has to bet on his ideas, to take a calculated risk, and to act. —Maxwell Maltz
4. Cherish your vision, cherish your ideals. Cherish the music that stirs in your heart, the beauty that forms in your mind, the loveliness that drapes your purest thoughts, for out of them will grow all delightful conditions, all heavenly environment; of these, if you but remain true to them, your world will at last be built. – James Allen
5. The creative person wants to be a know-it-all. He wants to know about all kinds of things-ancient history, nineteenth century mathematics, current manufacturing techniques, hog futures. Because he never knows when these ideas might come together to form a new idea. It may happen six minutes later, or six months, or six years. But he has faith that it will happen.— Carl Ally
6. I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed. —Michael Jordan
7. Do the one thing you think you cannot do. Fail at it. Try again. Do better the second time. The only people who never tumble are those who never mount the high wire. This is your moment. Own it. – Oprah Winfrey
8. Because of their courage, their lack of fear, they (creative people) are willing to make silly mistakes. The truly creative person is one who can think crazy; such a person knows full well that many of his great ideas will prove to be worthless. The creative person is flexible; he is able to change as the situation changes, to break habits, to face indecision and changes in conditions without undue stress. He is not threatened by the unexpected as rigid, inflexible people are. — Frank Goble
9. This is an absolute necessity for anybody today. You must have a room, or a certain hour or so a day, where you don’t know what was in the newspapers this morning, you don’t know who your friends are, you don’t know what you owe anybody, you don’t know what anybody owes you. This is a place where you can simply experience and bring forth, what you are and what you might be. This is the place of creative incubation. At first you might find that nothing happens there. But if you have a sacred place and use it, something will eventually happen.– Joseph Campbell
10. You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something–your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.” –Steve Jobs
11. Everybody is a Genius. But If You Judge a Fish by Its Ability to Climb a Tree, It Will Live Its Whole Life Believing that It is Stupid. – Albert Einstein
12. The key question isn’t “What fosters creativity?” But it is why in God’s name isn’t everyone creative? Where was the human potential lost? How was it crippled? I think therefore a good question might be not why do people create? But why do people not create or innovate? We have got to abandon that sense of amazement in the face of creativity, as if it were a miracle if anybody created anything.” — Abraham
13. Nothing is done. Everything in the world remains to be done or done over. The greatest picture is not yet painted, the greatest play isn’t written, the greatest poem is unsung. There isn’t in all the world a perfect railroad, nor a good government, nor a sound law. Physics, mathematics, and especially the most advanced and exact of the sciences are being fundamentally revised. . . Psychology, economics, and sociology are awaiting a Darwin, whose work in turn is awaiting an Einstein.” — Lincoln Steffens
14. The person who risks nothing does nothing, has nothing, is nothing, and becomes nothing. He may avoid suffering and sorrow, but he simply cannot learn and feel and change and grow and love and live. – Leo F. Buscaglia
15. The middle is boring. The middle is safe. The middle is where most folks like to reside. If you lived in the middle you probably wouldn’t be reading this.
16. If technology gives you the chance to speak up, build a platform and help show the way, take the chance and show your most amazing work! If you can learn something new, more efficiently than ever before, if the opportunity to leap presents itself, take it. Now is a good time.
This post was excerpted from my new book: The Smartest Things Ever Said About Being A Better Person.
