The Brave Man

It is not the critic that counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement. And at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.

- President Theodore Roosevelt, Paris 1910

Some Wonderful Quotes on Confidence

Nobody can make you feel inferior without your consent.

~Eleanor Roosevelt

It's not who you are that holds you back, it's who you think you're not.

~Author Unknown

We have to learn to be our own best friends because we fall too easily into the trap of being our own worst enemies.

~Roderick Thorp, Rainbow Drive

I quit being afraid when my first venture failed and the sky didn't fall down.

~Allen H. Neuharth

If you hear a voice within you say "you cannot paint," then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.

~Vincent Van Gogh

Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.

~Ralph Waldo Emerson

What a fool, quoth he, am I, thus to lie in a stinking dungeon, when I may as well walk at liberty! I have a key in my bosom, called Promise, that will, I am persuaded, open any lock in Doubting Castle.

~John Bunyan

If you really put a small value upon yourself, rest assured that the world will not raise your price.

~Author Unknown

Confidence comes not from always being right but from not fearing to be wrong.

~Peter T. Mcintyre

Argue for your limitations and, sure enough, they're yours.

~Richard Bach, Illusions

Thousands of geniuses live and die undiscovered - either by themselves or by others.

~Mark Twain

Nothing splendid has ever been achieved except by those who dared believe that something inside of them was superior to circumstance.

~Bruce Barton

Aerodynamically the bumblebee shouldn't be able to fly, but the bumblebee doesn't know that so it goes on flying anyway.

~Mary Kay Ash

Without a humble but reasonable confidence in your own powers you cannot be successful or happy.

~Norman Vincent Peale

The courage to be is the courage to accept oneself, in spite of being unacceptable.

~Paul Tillich

When the grass looks greener on the other side of the fence, it may be that they take better care of it there.

~Cecil Selig

The things we hate about ourselves aren't more real than things we like about ourselves.

~Ellen Goodman

I was thinking of my patients, and how the worst moment for them was when they discovered they were masters of their own fate. It was not a matter of bad or good luck. When they could no longer blame fate, they were in despair.

~Anaïs Nin

Your problem is you're... too busy holding onto your unworthiness.

~Ram Dass

It's me who is my enemy
Me who beats me up
Me who makes the monsters
Me who strips my confidence.

~Paula Cole, "Me," This Fire

If I am not for myself, who will be?

~Pirke Avoth

Once you become self-conscious, there is no end to it; once you start to doubt, there is no room for anything else.

~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960

What a man thinks of himself, that it is which determines, or rather indicates his fate.

~Henry David Thoreau

Pay no attention to what the critics say. A statue has never been erected in honor of a critic.

~Jean Sibelius

When there is no enemy within, the enemies outside cannot hurt you.

~African Proverb

Great tranquility of heart is his who cares for neither praise nor blame.

~Thomas à Kempis

We probably wouldn't worry about what people think of us if we could know how seldom they do.

~Olin Miller

You're never as good as everyone tells you when you win, and you're never as bad as they say when you lose.

~Lou Holtz and John Heisler, The Fighting Spirit

The way you treat yourself sets the standard for others.

~Sonya Friedman

Our ordinary mind always tries to persuade us that we are nothing but acorns and that our greatest happiness will be to become bigger, fatter, shinier acorns; but that is of interest only to pigs. Our faith gives us knowledge of something better: that we can become oak trees.

~E.F. Schumacher

Men are not against you; they are merely for themselves.

~Gene Fowler, Skyline, 1961

Stand Still

Stand still and look until you really see.

-Anon

Levels of Ignorance

He who knows not and knows not that he knows not, is a fool—shun him!
He who knows not and knows that he knows not, is unlearned—teach him!
He who knows and knows not that he knows, is asleep—awaken him!
He who knows and knows that he knows, is enlightened—follow him!

- Chinese Proverb

Balance and Enlightenment

The more in balance we ourselves are, the less we feel a need for correcting everybody else's worldviews. The more enlightened you yourself are, the less you are obsessed with making everybody else be like [and think like] you.

- Flemming Funch

Start with Adam

“ ..if anybody were to start where Adam started, he would not get further than Adam did…”

- Karl Popper, philosopher, 1979

Permanent Presence of Past

“… one of the most important properties of all fields of production [is] the permanent presence of the past of the field, which is endlessly recalled even in the very breaks which dispatch it to the past.”

- Pierre Bourdieu, sociologist, 1984