Quotes
Words I keep coming back to.
A personal collection of lines on action, craft and character from people who said it better than I could.
Hard choices, easy life. Easy choices, hard life.
I do not think there is any thrill that can go through the human heart like that felt by the inventor as he sees some creation of the brain unfolding to success… such emotions make a man forget food, sleep, friends, love, everything.
If you spend too much time thinking about a thing, you’ll never get it done.
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.
Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t – you’re right.
He who fails to plan is planning to fail.
Remember, a real decision is measured by the fact that you’ve taken new action. If there’s no action, you haven’t truly decided.
Change will lead to insight far more often than insight will lead to change.
Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work.
Sound when stretched is music. Movement when stretched is dance. Mind when stretched is meditation. Life when stretched is celebration.
I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost more than 300 games. 26 times I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot, and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over in my life… and that’s why I succeed.
Lack of activity destroys the good condition of every human being, while movement and methodical physical exercise save it and preserve it.
The best way to predict the future is to create it.
If you desire to change the world, where would you start? With yourself or others?
A political victory, a rise of rents, the recovery of your sick, the return of your absent friend, or some other favorable event raises your spirits, and you think good days are preparing for you. Do not believe it. Nothing can bring you peace by yourself. Nothing can bring you peace by the triumph of principles.
If you cannot risk, you cannot grow. If you cannot grow, you cannot become your best. If you cannot become your best, you cannot be happy. And if you cannot be happy, what else matters?
Never let anyone come to you without coming away better and happier.
Don’t change other people. Be the change you wish to see in other people.
Whatever we learn to do, we learn by actually doing it. People come to be builders, for instance, by building, and harp players by playing the harp. In the same way, by doing just acts we come to be just. By doing self-controlled acts, we come to be self-controlled, and by doing brave acts we become brave.
If you hear a voice within you saying ‘I am not a painter’, then, by all means, paint… and that voice will be silenced.
Today give all that you have, for what you keep inside, you lose forever!
The good Lord gave you a body that can stand most anything. It’s your mind you have to convince.
You can tell the size of a man by the size of the thing that makes him mad.
One day? Or day one. You decide.