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

Every Picture

“… every picture owes more to other pictures painted before than it owes to nature.”

- E.H. Gombrich

Opposite of Talking

"The opposite of talking isn't listening. The opposite of talking is waiting."

- Fran Lebowitz

Prejudice

"Expressing dislike of something you don't know is usually known as prejudice."

- Bjarne Stroustrup

Stupid to be Said

"Anything too stupid to be said is sung."

- Voltaire

Seeker of Truth

"If you would be a real seeker aftert is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things."

- Rene Descartes

In Mathematics

"In mathematics you don't understand things. You just get used to them."

- Johann von Neumann

What the World Needs

"What the world needs is more geniuses with humility, there are so few of us left."

- Oscar Levant

Harming a Cause

"The most perfidious way of harming a cause consists of defending it deliberately with faulty arguments."

- Friedrich Neitzsche

Young Fools

"The surprising thing about young fools is how many survive to become old fools."

- Doug Larson

Life

"Life is nothing but a competition to be the criminal rather than the victim."

- Bertrand Russell

Perfect Bureaucrat

"The perfect bureaucrat everywhere is the man who manages to make no decisions and escape all responsibility."

- Brooks Atkinson

Equanimity in Opinions

"Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions."

- Albert Einstien

We are What

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

- Aristotle.

The Only Way to Succeed

The only way to succeed is to be brave enough to risk failures.

- Bobby Jindal

The Most Beautiful Experience

The most beautiful experience in this world is the experience of the mysterious.

- Albert Einstien

The Future

The future is not some place we are going to, but one we are creating. The paths are not to be found, but made, and the activity of making them changes both the maker and the destination.

- John Schaar

Formulation of Problem

The formulation of a problem is often more essential than its solution, which may merely be a matter of mathematical or experimental skill. To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle, requires creative imagination and marks real advances.

- Albert Einstien

Mistake

A man who has committed a mistake and doesn't correct it, is committing another mistake.

- Confucius

Why Have One?

If you never change your mind, why have one?

- Edward DeBono

Listening

Listening is the beginning of understanding. Wisdom is the reward for a lifetime of listening. Let the wise listen and add to their learning and let the discerning get guidance.

- Proverb

Self Regulation

Goal directed self-imposed delay of gratification is perhaps the essence of emotional self-regulation: the ability to deny impulse in the service or a goal, whether it be building a business, solving an algebraic equation or pursuing the Stanley Cup.

- Daniel Goleman (in Emotional Intelligence)

Persistence

Persistence is a twin sister of excellence. One is a matter of quality and the other a matter of time.

- Marabel Morgan

The Mind that is not baffled

When we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work, when we know longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings.

- Wendell Berry

Problem

Any stimulus, question, task, phenomenon or discrepancy for which an explanation is
immediately not known is a problem.

- Arthur Costa, Bena Kallick

On Successful Technology

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled."

- Richard P. Feynman

Constantly Trying to Understand

As children, we were constantly trying to understand the world about us. We were endlessly curious. We wanted reasons for everything. We asked "why?" and "how?" and "when?" and "where?" until our parents, realizing the limitations of their own knowledge, may have become frustrated and impatient. Then we went to school and did the same thing to our teachers, only to discover their limitations. We concluded that no-one knew the answers to the really important questions of life, and instead got busy learning those things other people decided were good for us.

- Philip Chandler

Ordinary Man vs Warrior

The basic difference between an ordinary man and a warrior is that a warrior takes
everything as a challenge, while an ordinary man takes everything as a blessing or a curse.

- Carlos Castaneda