– Søren Kierkegaard
He that hath no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down and without walls.
– Proverbs 25:28
We do not suddenly become what we do not cooperate in becoming.
– William J. Bennett
What a man thinks of himself, that is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate.
– Henry David Thoreau
We who have lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances—to choose one’s own way.
– Viktor Frankl
Nature gives you the face you have when you are twenty. Life shapes the face you have at thirty. But it is up to you to earn the face you have at fifty.
– Coco Chanel
I believe that every right implies a responsibility; every opportunity, an obligation; every possession, a duty.
– John D. Rockefeller
He that would govern others, first should be Master of himself.
– Philip Massinger
You can’t build a reputation on what you are going to do.
– Henry Ford
You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don’t try.
– Beverly Sills
If we don’t change, we don’t grow. If we don’t grow, we aren’t really living.
– Gail Sheehy
You must be the change you wish to see in the world.
– Mohandas K. Gandhi
The tragedy of life is what dies inside a man while he lives.
– Albert Schweitzer
There is no such thing as can’t, only won’t. If you’re qualified, all it takes is a burning desire to accomplish, to make a change.
– Jan Ashford
I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavor.
– Henry David Thoreau
The heir to the kingdom is taught that he may become a king in reality by first governing his own appetites.
– Plato
Opportunities are usually disguised as hard work, so most people don’t recognize them.
– Ann Landers
A mother is not a person to lean on but a person to make leaning unnecessary.
– Dorothy Canfield Fisher
You must do the things you think you cannot do.
– Eleanor Roosevelt
Courage is being scared to death—and saddling up anyway.
– John Wayne
HABIT 2
* * *
BEGIN WITH THE END IN MIND
Individuals, families, teams, and organizations shape their own future by creating a mental vision and purpose for any project, large or small. They don’t just live day to day with no clear purpose in mind. They identify and commit themselves to the principles, relationships, and purposes that matter most to them.
– Stephen R. Covey
A man is not idle because he is absorbed in thought. There is a visible labor and there is an invisible labor.
– Victor Hugo
A hard beginning maketh a good ending.
– John Heywood
Nothing contributes so much to tranquilize the mind as a steady purpose—a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye.
– Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
A sensible man never embarks on an enterprise until he can see his way clear to the end of it.
– Aesop
Many persons have a wrong idea of what constitutes real happiness. It is not obtained through self-gratification, but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.
– Helen Keller
In every block of marble I see a statue;
See it as plainly as though it stood before me,
Shaped and perfect in attitude and action.
I have only to hew away the rough walls
Which imprison the lovely apparition
To reveal it to other eyes, as mine already see it.
– Michelangelo
Die when I may, I want it said of me by those who knew me best, that I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower where I thought a flower would grow.
– Abraham Lincoln
In each action we must look beyond the action at our past, present, and future state, and at others whom it affects, and see the relations of all those things. And then we shall be very cautious.
– Blaise Pascal
All men should strive to learn before they die what they are running from, and to, and why.
– James Thurber
He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.
– Friedrich Nietzsche
The greatest use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it.
– William James
Give us clear vision, that we may know where to stand and what to stand for—because unless we stand for something, we shall fall for anything.
– Peter Marshall
The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.
– Eleanor Roosevelt
Happiness, wealth, and success are byproducts of goal setting; they cannot be the goal themselves.
– Denis Waitley
How extraordinary people are, that they get themselves into such situations where they go on doing what they dislike doing, and have no need or obligation to do, simply because it seems to be expected.
– Margaret Drabble
I leave this rule for others when I’m dead,
Be always sure you’re right—then go ahead.
– Davy Crockett
Be a life long or short, its completeness depends on what it was lived for.
– David Starr Jordan
In every enterprise consider where you would come out.
– Publilius Syrus
If you don’t know where you are going, you will probably end up somewhere else.
– Laurence J. Peter
One ship sails east and one sails west
By the self-same wind that blows;
’Tis the set of the sail and not the gale
That determines the way it goes.
Like the ships of the sea are the ways of fate
As we voyage along through life;
’Tis the set of the soul that determines the goal
And not the calm or the strife.
– Ella Wheeler Wilcox
The majority of hiring mistakes made each day would be prevented if the people responsible for the hiring simply did a more effective job of determining exactly what they were looking for before they started to look.
– Robert Half
Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life.
– Proverbs 4:23
Education must have an end in view, for it is not an end in itself.
– Sybil Marshall
Without the rich heart, wealth is an ugly beggar.
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
Man’s main task in life is to give birth to himself.
– Erich Fromm
The heart has its reasons which reason does not understand.
– Blaise Pascal
The beginning is the most important part of any work.
– Plato
We are not born with maps; we have to make them, and the making requires effort. The more effort we make to appreciate and perceive reality, the larger and more accurate our maps will be. But many do not want to make this effort. Their maps are small and sketchy, their views of the world narrow and misleading.
– M. Scott Peck
Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win.
– Sun tzu
Failing to plan is a plan to fail.
– Effie Jones
What is the use of running when we are not on the right road?
– German proverb
You see things and you say, “Why?” But I dream things that never were and say “Why not?”
– George Bernard Shaw
Imagination is more important than knowledge.
– Albert Einstein
Our life is what our thoughts make it.
– Marcus Aurelius Antoninus
One never goes so far as when one doesn’t know where one is going.
– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
In everything one must consider the end.
– Jean de La Fontaine
When you cease to make a contribution you begin to die.
– Eleanor Roosevelt
That man is a success who has lived well, laughed often and loved much; who has gained the respect of intelligent men and the love of children; who has filled his niche and accomplished his task; who leaves the world better than he found it, whether by an improved poppy, a perfect poem or a rescued soul; who never lacked appreciation of earth’s beauty or failed to express it; who looked for the best in others and gave the best he had.
– Robert Louis Stevenson
Because I have loved life, I shall have no sorrow to die.
– Amelia Burr
Hitch your wagon to a star.
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
That which holds the attention determines the action.
– William James
Far and away the best prize life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.
– Theodore Roosevelt
Well begun is half done.
– Greek proverb
To die is poignantly bitter, but the idea of having to die without having lived is unbearable.