There comes a time when you must stand alone.

You must feel confident enough within yourself to follow your own dreams.

You must be willing to make sacrifices.

You must be capable of changing and rearranging your priorities so that your final goal can be achieved.

Sometimes, familiarity and comfort need to be challenged.

There are times when you must take a few extra chances and create your own realities.

Be strong enough to at least try to make your life better.

Be confident enough that you won’t settle for a compromise just to get by.

Appreciate yourself by allowing yourself the opportunities to grow, develop, and find your true sense of purpose in this life.

Don’t stand in someone else’s shadow when it’s your sunlight that should lead the way.

Work hard at what you like to do and try to overcome all obstacles

Laugh at your mistakes and praise yourself for learning from them

Pick some flowers and appreciate the beauty of nature

Say hello to strangers and enjoy the people you know

Don’t be afraid to show your emotions laughing and crying make you feel better

Love your friends and family with your entire being they are the most important part of your life

Feel the calmness on a quiet sunny day

Find a rainbow and live your world of dreams always remember life is better than it seems

BE THANKFUL

Be thankful that you don’t already have everything you desire. If you did, what would there be to look forward to?

Be thankful when you don’t know something, for it gives you the opportunity to learn.

Be thankful for the difficult times. During those times you grow.

Be thankful for your limitations, because they give you opportunities for improvement.

Be thankful for your mistakes. They will teach you valuable lessons.

Be thankful when you’re tired and weary, because it means you’ve made a difference.

It’s easy to be thankful for the good things.

A life of rich fulfillment comes to those who are also thankful for the setbacks.

Find a way to be thankful for your troubles, and they can become your blessings.

Appreciating Our Past

It is easy to be negative about past mistakes and unhappiness. But it is much more healing to look at ourselves and our past in the light of experience, acceptance, and growth.

Our past is a series of lessons that advance us to higher levels of living and loving. The relationships we entered, stayed in, or ended taught us necessary lessons.

Some of us have emerged from the most painful circumstances with strong insights about who we are and what we want. Our mistakes? Necessary. Our frustrations, failures, and sometimes stumbling attempts at growth and progress? Necessary too. Each step of the way, we learned. We went through exactly the experiences we need to, to become who we are today. Each step of the way, we progressed. Is our past a mistake? No. The only mistake we can make is mistaking that for the truth.

Today, God, help me let go of negative thoughts I may be harboring about my past circumstances or relationships. I can accept, with gratitude, all that has brought me to today.

A Lesson in Life

Everything happens for a reason. Nothing happens by chance or by means of good or bad luck. Illness, injury, love, lost moments of true greatness and sheer stupidity all occur to test the limits of your soul. Without these small tests, if they be events, illnesses or relationships, life would be like a smoothly paved, straight, flat road to nowhere.

If someone hurts you, betrays you , or breaks you heart, forgive them. For they have helped you learn about trust and the importance of being cautious to who you open your heart to.

If someone loves you, love them back unconditionally, not only because they love you, but because they are teaching you to love and opening your heart and eyes to things you would have never seen or felt without them.

Make every day count. Appreciate every moment and take from it everything that you possibly can, for you may never be able to experience it again.

Talk to people you have never talked to before, and actually listen. Hold your head up because you have every right to. Tell yourself you are a great individual and believe in yourself, for if you don’t believe in yourself, no one else will believe in you either.

You can make of your life anything you wish. Create your own life and then go out and live it.

2. Not more than 3 to 5 goals. Step by step.

3. Examine your motivation. Know your reasons. Give them some thought … and write them down. Really, really want it.

4. Commit publicly.

5.Get excited. Seeing the benefits of the goal in my head.

6. Build anticipation. Delaying your start, you are building anticipation, and increasing your focus and energy for your goal.

7. Print it out, post it up.

8. Just start.

9. Stay accountable. Find pleasure.

10. Squash negative thoughts and replace them with positive ones. Be aware of your urges to quit, and overcome them.

11. Think about the benefits. Use visualization.

12. Read/Study about it. Get a coach or take a class.

13. Find like-minded friends.

14. Read inspiring stories.

15. Build on your successes.

16. Just get through the low points.

17. Get help.

18. Chart your progress.

19. Reward yourself often.

20. Go for mini-goals.

21. Never skip two days in a row.

If you think you are beaten, you are.

If you think you dare not, you won’t.

If you like to win, but don’t think you can,

It’s almost a cinch that you won’t.

If you think you’ll lose, you’ve lost,

For out in the world you’ll find

Success begins with a person’s will;

It’s all in the state of mind.

For many a game is lost

Before even a step is run

And many a coward fails

Before his work is begun.

Think big and your deed will grow;

Think small and you will fall behind.

Think that you can and you will;

It’s all in the state of mind.

If you think that you are out-classed, you are;

You’ve got to think high to rise.

You’ve got to be sure of yourself

Before you can win the prize.

Life’s battles don’t always go

To the strongest or fastest man

But sooner or later the person who wins

Is the person who thinks he can.

These famous Thomas Edison quotes capture the can-do spirit of 19th century America.

•

Genius: one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration

•

I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.

•

Everything comes to him who hustles while he waits.

•

There is no expedient to which a man will not go to avoid the labor of thinking.

•

Discontent is the first necessity of progress. Show me a thoroughly satisfied man and I’ll show you a failure.

•

Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.

•

If we did all the things we are capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves.

•

To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk.

•

Religion is all bunk.

•

There are are no rules here – we’re trying to accomplish something.

Bruce Lee Quotes

Quotes and wisdom from famous martial arts star Bruce Lee

•

Boards don’t hit back.

•

A wise man can learn more from a foolish question than a fool can learn from a wise answer.

•

A quick temper will make a fool of you soon enough.

•

A goal is not always meant to be reached, it often serves simply as something to aim at.

•

Always be yourself, express yourself, have faith in yourself; do not go out and look for a successful personality and duplicate it.

•

As you think, so shall you become.

•

By adopting a certain physical posture, a resonant chord is struck in spirit.

•

I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.

•

I hope martial artists are more interested in the root of martial arts and not the different decorative branches, flowers or leaves.

•

If I tell you I’m good, you would probably think I’m boasting. If I tell you I’m no good, you know I’m lying.

•

If there is a God, he is within. You don’t ask God to give you things, you depend on God for your inner theme.

•

If you don’t want to slip up tomorrow, speak the truth today.

•

If you love life, don’t waste time, for time is what life is made up of.

•

If you make an ass out of yourself, there will always be someone to ride you.

•

If you think a thing is impossible, you’ll make it impossible.

•

If you want to do your duty properly, you should do just a little more than that.

•

If you want to learn to swim, jump into the water. On dry land, no frame of mind is ever going to help you.

•

In combat, spontaneity rules; rote performance of technique perishes.

•

It’s not what you give, it’s the way you give it.

•

Mistakes are always forgivable, if one has the courage to admit them.

•

Out of chaos, find simplicity. From discord, find harmony.

•

Real living is living for others.

•

Showing off is the fool’s idea of glory.

•

The less effort, the faster and more powerful you will be.

•

The mind is like a fertile garden in which anything that is planted, flowers or weeds, will grow.

•

There are lots of guys around the world that are lazy. They have big fat guts. They talk about chi power and things they can do, but don’t believe it.

•

Use only that which works, and take it from any place you find it.

•

Using no way as way, having no limitation as limitation.

•

There are no limits. There are plateaus, but you must not stay there, you must go beyond them.

•

Life is better lived than conceptualized

1. Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.

Mark Twain

2. Make each day your masterpiece.

John Wooden

3. Manifest plainness, embrace simplicity. Reduce selfishness, have few desires.

Lao Tzu

4. 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

5. Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the grey twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.

Theodore Roosevelt

6. Fall seven times, stand up eight!

Japanese Proverbs

7. I am bigger than anything that can happen to me. All these things, sorrow, misfortune, and suffering, are outside my door. I am in the house and I have the key.

Charles Fletcher Lummis

8. Difficulties are meant to rouse, not discourage. The human spirit is to grow strong by conflict.

William Ellery Channing

9. The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain.

Dolly Parton

10. No pressure, no diamonds.

Mary Case

11. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The proper function of a man is to live, not to exist.

Jack London

12. Everything you need is already inside. Just do it.

Bill Bowerman (Nike)

13. Get action. Seize the moment. Man was never intended to become an oyster.

Theodore Roosevelt

14. Some people dream of success… while others wake up and work hard at it.

Author Unknown

15. The best dreams happen when you’re awake.

Cherie Gilderbloom

16. God, grant me the serenity to accept things that I cannot change;

The courage to change the things I can; And the wisdom to know the difference.

Dr. Reinhold Niebuhr

17. You must be the change you wish to see in the world.

Mahatma Gandhi

18. Start living now. Stop saving the good china for that special occasion. Stop withholding your love until that special person materializes. Every day you are alive is a special occasion. Every minute, every breath, is a gift from God.

Mary Manin Morrissey

19. To change one’s life; Start immediately. Do it flamboyantly. No exceptions.

William James

20. Life has no limitations, except the ones you make.

Les Brown

21. There will be sleeping enough in the Grave.

Benjamin Franklin

22. Life is no brief candle to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got a hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.

George Bernard Shaw

23. Life is either daring adventure or nothing.

Helen Keller

24. If you want your life to be a magnificent story, then begin by realizing that you are the author and everyday you have the opportunity to write a new page.

Mark Houlahan

25. Don’t make me walk when I want to fly.

Galina Doyla

26. A pessimist sees only the dark side of the clouds, and mopes; a philosopher sees both sides, and shrugs; an optimist doesn’t see the clouds at all – he’s walking on them.

Leonard Louis Levinson

27. Once you choose hope, anything’s possible.

Christopher Reeve

28. The best is yet to be.

Robert Browning

29. I am here for a purpose and that purpose is to grow into a mountain, not to shrink to a grain of sand. Henceforth will I apply all my efforts to become the highest mountain of all and I will strain my potential until it cries for mercy.

Og Mandino

30. We were born to succeed, not to fail.

Henry David Thoreau

31. Tough times never last, but tough people do.

Dr. Robert Schuller

32. Carpe diem. (Seize the day.)

Dr. Horace

33. Nobody ever drowned in sweat

US Marine saying

34. Gentlemen, we are going to relentlessly chase perfection, knowing full well we will not catch it, because nothing is perfect. But we are going to relentlessly chase it, because in the process we will catch excellence. I am not remotely interested in just being good.

Vince Lombardi (one of the most successful coaches in the history of American football in his first team meeting as Packers coach)

35. Throw your heart over the fence and the rest will follow.

Norman Vincent Peale

36. Believe and act as if it were impossible to fail.

Charles Kettering

37. Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal.

Henry Ford

38. Reach up as far as you can and God will help you reach the rest of the way.

Greg Hickman

39. Never, never, never give up.

Winston Churchill ( In his later years, Winston Churchill was asked to give the commencement address at Oxford University. Following his introduction, he rose, went to the podium, and said the above 5 words. Then he took his seat.)

40. Our greatest glory is not in never failing but in rising up every time we fail.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

41. It’s easy enough to be pleasant, when life flows along like a song, but the man worthwhile is the man with a smile, when everything goes dead wrong.

Author Unknown.

42. Everyday, give yourself a good mental shampoo.

Dr. Sara Jordan

43. Realize that true happiness lies within you.

Lucian

44. When one door of happiness closes, another opens: but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.

Helen Keller

45. If life gives you lemons, make lemonade.

Joan Collins

46. Birds sing after a storm; why shouldn’t people feel as free to delight in whatever remains to them?

Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy

47. Let me not pray to be sheltered from dangers, but to be fearless in facing them. Let me not beg for the stilling of my pain, but for the heart to conquer it.

Tagore

48. This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God.

Walt Whitman

49. In the midst of movement and chaos, keep stillness inside of you.

Deepak Chopra

50. If you cannot be a poet, be the poem.

David Carradine

51. Rise above the storm and you will find the sunshine.

Mario Fernandez

52. Don’t wish it were easier, wish you were better.

Jim Rohn

53. Celebrate your success and find humor in your failures. Don’t take yourself so seriously. Loosen up and everyone around you will loosen up. Have fun and always show enthusiasm. When all else fails, put on a costume and sing a silly song.

Sam Walton (founder of Walmart)

54. Keep your face to the sunshine and you can never see the shadow.

Helen Keller

55. Those who wish to sing, always find a song.

Swedish Proverb

56. Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a harder battle.

Plato

57. Defeat is simply a signal to press onward.

Helen Keller

58. Don’t count the days, make the days count.

Muhammad Ali

59. Rest but never quit. Even the sun has a sinking spell each evening. But it always rises the next morning. At sunrise, every soul is born again.

Author Unknown

60. Don’t hurry, don’t worry. You’re only here for a short visit. So be sure to stop and smell the flowers.

Walter Hagen

61. Love all. Serve all. Help ever. Hurt never.

Author Unknown

62. Meditate. Live purely. Be quiet. Do your work with mastery. Like the moon, come out from behind the clouds! Shine.

Buddha

63. Dance as though no one is watching you,

Love as though you have never been hurt before,

Sing as though no one can hear you,

Live as though heaven is on earth.

Souza.

64. You will find, as you look back upon your life, that the moments when you really lived are the moments when you have done things in the spirit of love.

Henry Drummond

65. Someday, after we have mastered the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love. Then, for the second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.

Teilhard de Chardin

66. We do not sing because we are happy, we are happy because we sing.

William James

67. Waste no tears over the grieves of yesterday.

Euripides

68. The moon lives in the lining of your skin.

Pablo Neruda

69. He who climbs above the cares of this world, and turns his face to his God, has found the sunny side of life.

Spurgeon

70. Never think that God’s delays are God’s denials. Hold on; hold fast; hold out. Patience is genius.

Georges-Louis Leclere De Buffon

71. It’s not whether you get knocked down; it’s whether you get back up.

Vince Lombardi

72. Success is going from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm.

Abraham Lincoln

73. Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

74. Use what talents you possess; The woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best.

Henry Van Dyke

75. When love and skill work together, expect a masterpiece.

John Ruskin

76. Obstacles cannot crush me. Every obstacle yields to stern resolve. He who is fixed to a star does not change his mind.

Leonardo Da Vinci

77. You must not only aim right, but draw the bow with all your might.

Henry David Thoreau

78. Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.

Robert F. Kennedy

79. So long as there is breath in me, that long will I persist. For now I know one of the greatest principles of success; If I persist long enough I will win.

Og Mandino

80. Success and rest don’t sleep together.

Russian proverb

81. The world has the habit of making room for the man whose words and actions show that he knows where he is going.

Napoleon Hill

82. We must embrace pain and burn it as fuel for our journey.

Kenji Miyazawa

83. If you’re going through Hell, keep going.

Winston Churchill

84. Where the willingness is great, the difficulties cannot be great.

Machiavelli

85. Remember the storm is a good opportunity for the pine and the cypress to show their strength and their stability.

Ho Chi Minh

86. In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer.

Albert Camus

87. When defeat comes, accept it as a signal that your plans are not sound, rebuild those plans, and set sail once more toward your coveted goal.

Napoleon Hill

88. In the middle of a difficulty lies opportunity.

Albert Einstein

89. God never sends us more than we can handle.

Mother Theresa

90. When you come to a roadblock, take a detour.

Mary Kay Ash

91. Promise yourself to be so strong that nothing can disturb your peace of mind.

Christian Larson

92. It is defeat that turns bone to flint; it is defeat that turns gristle to muscle; it is defeat that makes men invincible.

Henry Ward Beecher

93. The things that hurt us teach us.

Author Unknown

94. What counts is not necessarily the size of the dog in the fight – it’s the size of the fight in the dog.

Dwight D. Eisenhower

95. The oyster turns into pearl the sand which annoys it.

Sidney Newton Bremer

96. There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.

Albert Einstein

97. Light tomorrow with today.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

98. Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.

Will Rogers

99. If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.

Henry David Thoreau

100. A year from now you may wish you had started today.

Karen Lamb

Before I Die

What is important to you

Before

After

Update March 6, 2011 - And after three days: