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There are always two choices. Two paths to take. One is easy. And its only reward is that it’s easy

Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.

An organization’s ability to learn, and translate that learning into action rapidly, is the ultimate competitive business advantage.

Life is a blank canvas, and you need to throw all the paint on it you can.

Misfortunes often sharpen the genius.

Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired, and success achieved.

There are three things extremely hard: steel, a diamond, and to know one’s self.

Experience is not what happens to a man; it is what a man does with what happens to him.

You’ve got to do your own growing, no matter how tall your grandfather was.

Our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers.

We cannot do everything at once, but we can do something at once.

Life is mostly froth and bubble, / Two things stand like stone, / Kindness in another’s trouble, / Courage in your own.

You can’t get away from yourself by moving from one place to another.

Work is either fun or drudgery. It depends on your attitude. I like fun.

Nothing so soon the drooping spirits can raise, as praises from the men, whom all men praise.

A pessimistic attitude may seem so deeply rooted as to be permanent. I have found, however, that pessimism is escapable. Pessimists can in fact learn to be optimists, and not through mindless devices like whistling a happy tune or mouthing platitudes, but by learning a new set of cognitive skills.

Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.

Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together.

The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.

New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common.

There can be no courage unless you’re scared.

Your present circumstances don’t determine where you can go; they merely determine where you start.

We all have ability. The difference is how we use it.

Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other one thing.

We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.

It is the familiar that usually eludes us in life. What is before our noses is what we see last.

If you are not fired with enthusiasm, you will be fired with enthusiasm.

We are all ready to be savage in some cause. The difference between a good man and a bad one is the choice of the cause.

Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfills the same function as pain in the human body, calling attention to an unhealthy state of things.

We are not creatures of circumstance; we are creators of circumstance.

There is no such thing as a ‘self-made’ man. We are made up of thousands of others. Everyone who has ever done a kind deed for us, or spoken one word of encouragement to us, has entered into the make-up of our character and of our thoughts.

Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change.

Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.

What is morally wrong can never be advantageous, even when it enables you to make some gain that you believe to be to your advantage. The mere act of believing that some wrongful course of action constitutes an advantage is pernicious.

In all things that you do, consider the end.

There is only one boss: the customer. And he can fire everybody in the company, from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else.

A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.

Victory is much more meaningful when it comes not just from one person, but from the joint achievements of many.

It’s not so much that we’re afraid of change or so in love with the old ways, but it’s that place in between that we fear …. It’s like being between trapezes. It’s Linus when his blanket is in the dryer. There’s nothing to hold on to.

A positive attitude from you tends to produce a positive attitude toward you.

Business is all about solving people’s problems — at a profit.

Money doesn’t change men. It merely unmasks them.

Don’t put limitations on yourself. Other people will do that for you.

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

He has not learned the lesson of life who does not every day surmount a fear.

In the business world, everyone is paid in two coins: cash and experience. Take the experience first; the cash will come later.

A man is like a fraction whose numerator is what he is and whose denominator is what he thinks of himself. The larger the denominator, the smaller the fraction.

Talent is God-given; be humble. Fame is man-given; be thankful. Conceit is self-given; be careful.

I think there is something more important than believing: Action! The world is full of dreamers, there aren’t enough who will move ahead and begin to take concrete steps to actualize their vision.

If you don’t like change, you’re going to like irrelevance even less.

Patience is also a form of action.

It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves.

Instruction does much, but encouragement everything.

Failure has to be an option. … No important endeavor that required innovation was done without risk.

It’s easy to have faith in people who have already proved themselves. It’s much tougher to believe in people before they have proved themselves. But that is the key to motivating people to reach their potential.

There is nothing which we receive with so much reluctance as advice.

By leadership we mean the art of getting someone else to do something that you want done because he wants to do it.

The only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks.

To improve is to change, so to be perfect is to have changed often.

Use the talents you possess, for the woods would be a very silent place if no birds sang except the best.

In any project the important factor is your belief. Without belief, there can be no successful outcome.

The universe is made of stories, not of atoms.

You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.

We are so vain that we even care for the opinion of those we don’t care for.

You are who you are and what you are because of what has gone into your mind. You can change who you are and what you are by changing what goes into your mind.

If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation are men who want crops without plowing up the ground.

Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.

What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?

The greatest crime in the world is not developing your potential. When you do what you do best, you are helping not only yourself, but the world.

When I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I am old, I admire kind people.

If you have always done it that way, it is probably wrong.

Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on.

Most people say that it is the intellect which makes a great scientist. They are wrong: It is character.

The chances are that you have already come to believe that happiness is unattainable. But men have attained it. And they have attained it by realizing that happiness does not spring from the procuring of physical or mental pleasure, but from the development of reason and the adjustment of conduct to principles.

Care about people’s approval and you will be their prisoner.

The lesson will always repeat itself, unless you see yourself as the problem — not others.

True teachers are those who use themselves as bridges over which they invite their students to cross; then, having facilitated their crossing, joyfully collapse, encouraging them to create their own.

A leader is best when people barely know that he exists. … When his work is done, his aims fulfilled, they will all say, ‘We did this ourselves.”

Valor withers without adversity.

The only thing I know that truly heals people is unconditional love.

To be nobody but myself — in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else — means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight, and never stop fighting.

It is a true saying, that what you fear you find.

It is error only, and not truth, that shrinks from inquiry.

The most important person is the one you are with in this moment.

We don’t accomplish anything in this world alone … and whatever happens is the result of the whole tapestry of one’s life and all the weavings of individual threads from one to another that creates something.

I believe that whatever your chosen profession, if you make a strong commitment and have a burning desire in your heart–combined with the conviction that you can make a difference–dogged persistence provides you the best insurance for success.

The only person who is educated is the one who has learned how to learn and change.

A man should never be ashamed to own he has been in the wrong, which is but saying … that he is wiser today than he was yesterday.

Defeat is not the worst of failures. Not to have tried is the true failure.

With confidence, you have won even before you have started.

Nothing is ever lost by courtesy. It is the cheapest of pleasures, costs nothing, and conveys much.

Do not be concerned that no one recognizes your merits; be concerned that you may not recognize others’.

That sorrow which is the harbinger of joy is preferable to the joy which is followed by sorrow.

Plans are worthless, but planning is everything.

Honest disagreement is often a good sign of progress.

If people lack the previous experiences that allow them to master a given leadership competence, however, it is still not too late – but it requires motivation. The brain’s ability to sprout fresh connections continues throughout life. It just takes more effort and energy to learn in adulthood lessons that would have come more readily in our early years.

To have what we want is riches, but to be able to do without is power.

I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies, for the hardest victory is over self.

Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not, nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not, unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not, the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan ‘press on’ has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.

The successful warrior is the average man, with laser-like focus.

Every child is an artist until he is told he’s not an artist.

All progress has resulted from people who took unpopular positions.

In a chronically leaking boat, energy devoted to changing vessels is likely to be more productive than energy devoted to patching leaks.

The truth is, we’re products of everything – genes, environment, family, friends, trade winds, earthquakes, sunspots, schools, accidents, serendipity, anything you can think of, and more. What distinguishes the leader from everyone else is that he or she takes all of that and creates a new, unique self.

When all else is lost, the future still remains.

Success is the sum of small efforts repeated day in and day out.

The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.

No person was ever honored for what he received. Honor has been the reward for what he gave.

Many of us are more capable than some of us, but none of us is as capable as all of us.

The test of a vocation is the love of the drudgery it involves.

Confidence is contagious; so is lack of confidence.

The higher we are placed, the more humbly we should walk.

Take your work seriously but yourself lightly.

I’d rather regret the things I have done than regret the things I have not done.

Anyone can hold the helm when the sea is calm.

Believe in yourself! Have faith in your abilities! Without a humble but reasonable confidence in your own powers you cannot be successful or happy.

Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.

Mistakes should be examined, learned from, and discarded; not dwelled upon and stored.

The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.

Whenever you commend, add your reasons for doing so; it is this which distinguishes the approbation of a man of sense from the flattery of sycophants and admiration of fools.

This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of Nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.

The secret of my influence has always been that it remained secret.

Don’t expect to build up the weak by pulling down the strong.

A poor idea well written is more likely to be accepted than a good idea poorly written.

Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else.

Every gain made by individuals or societies is almost instantly taken for granted.

Men build too many walls and not enough bridges.

In time, the people with desire will always rise to the top.

Eloquence is the power to translate a truth into language perfectly intelligible to the person to whom you speak.

Ultimately, we know deeply that the other side of every fear is a freedom.

Too much rest is rust.

The moment you accept yourself, you become beautiful.

A failure is a man who has blundered but is not able to cash in on the experience.

If you aren’t feeling pain, there is rarely enough motivation or humility to change.

You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions.

Nothing is more dangerous than an idea when it’s the only one you have.

Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.

If you are successful, it is because somewhere, sometime, someone gave you a life or an idea that started you in the right direction. Remember also that you are indebted to life until you help some less fortunate person, just as you were helped.

It is the capacity to develop and improve their skills that distinguishes leaders from followers.

Our business in life is not to get ahead of other people, but to get ahead of ourselves.

When I dare to be powerful, to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.

We are all failures, at least all the best of us.

You can make more friends in two months by becoming genuinely interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.

There are undeniably bad bosses, toxic work environments, difficult relationships and real life crises. Nonetheless, we have far more control over our energy than we ordinarily realize. The number of hours in a day is fixed, but the quantity and quality of energy available to us is not. It is our most precious resource.

If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.

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 safe harbor, catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore, Dream, Discover.

We become what we think about.

Nothing great in the world has been accomplished without passion.

I never did anything worth doing by accident, nor did any of my inventions come indirectly through accident, except the phonograph. No, when I have fully decided that a result is worth getting, I go about it, and make trial after trial, until it comes.

For training and learning purposes, it’s important to create meaningful chunks that condense several pieces of information into one. This facilitates perception, learning and retention. By creating a single chunk, we reduce the short-term memory load.

The greater the artist, the greater the doubt. Perfect confidence is granted to the less talented as a consolation prize.

Leaders don’t create followers, they create more leaders.

Making people feel important is precisely what a leader is paid for — because making people feel important motivates them to do better work.

Discussion is an exchange of knowledge; argument is an exchange of ignorance.

Patience is also a form of action.

Ambition is like hunger; it obeys no law but its appetite.

The mind that is anxious about future events is miserable.

There is no education like adversity.

Man is only truly great when he acts from the passions.

To reason with poorly chosen words is like using a pair of scales with inaccurate weights.

No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.

If you think you can, you’re right. If you think you can’t, you’re right.

Being defeated is often a temporary condition. Giving up is what makes it permanent.

The most important single ingredient in the formula of success is the knack of getting along with people.

Selfless service has always been one of the most powerful methods of influence.

What you resist persists.

The most important persuasion tool you have in your entire arsenal is integrity.

Never give up on a dream just because of the time it will take to accomplish it. The time will pass anyway.

If money be not thy servant, it will be thy master. The covetous man cannot so properly be said to possess wealth, as that may be said to possess him.

They envy the distinction I have won; let them therefore, envy my toils, my honesty, and the methods by which I gained it.

No man should judge unless he asks himself in absolute honesty whether in a similar situation he might not have done the same.

Your task is not to foresee the future, but to enable it.

What you dislike in another take care to correct in yourself.

An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.

You are never a loser until you quit trying.

I was obliged to be industrious. Whoever is equally industrious will succeed equally well.

People forget years and remember moments.

The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers.

People with clear, written goals, accomplish far more in a shorter period of time than people without them could ever imagine.

I can accept failure; everyone fails at something. But I can’t accept not trying.

Most people have to get to a point where they don’t have a choice before they’ll change something.

The greatest compliment that was ever paid me was when one asked me what I thought, and attended to my answer.

Move out of your comfort zone. You can only grow if you are willing to feel awkward and uncomfortable when you try something new.

What you befriend, you’ll transcend.

Problems are only opportunities in work clothes.

Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.

People with humility don’t think less of themselves; they just think of themselves less.

The starting point of all achievement is desire.

I am convinced that nothing we do is more important than hiring and developing people. At the end of the day you bet on people, not on strategies.

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

You’ve got to go out on a limb sometimes because that’s where the fruit is.

The most important thing in any relationship is not what you get but what you give.

For as children tremble and fear everything in the blind darkness, so we in the light sometimes fear what is no more to be feared than the things children in the dark hold in terror and imagine will come true.

It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all — in which case, you fail by default.

The man who can make others laugh secures more votes for a measure than the man who forces them to think.

I cannot give you the formula for success, but I can give you the formula for failure–which is: Try to please everybody.

In reading the lives of great men, I found that the first victory they won was over themselves. … Self-discipline with all of them came first.

Managers are people who do things right, and leaders are people who do the right thing.

Success seems to be connected with action. Successful people keep moving. They make mistakes, but they don’t quit.

I want to stay as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can’t see from the center.

A dream is your creative vision for your life in the future. You must break out of your current comfort zone and become comfortable with the unfamiliar and the unknown.

Without inspiration the best powers of the mind remain dormant. There is a fuel in us which needs to be ignited with sparks.

We must walk consciously only part way toward our goal, and then leap in the dark to our success.

The essential pain is the downside, the risk, the reality of the human condition you must face to follow through with your reasonable expectation. The earned reward is the upside, the advantage, the blessing of life you will receive if you follow through. Experiencing them over and over is how we retrain our feeling brain and grow ourselves up from the inside out.

The most powerful weapon on earth is the human soul on fire.

Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do..

Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.

The problem is not that there are problems. The problem is expecting otherwise and thinking that having problems is a problem.

You can tell you’re on the road to success; it’s uphill all the way.

Get comfortable being uncomfortable. That’s when you see the most growth.

Genes and family may determine the foundation of the house, but time and place determine its form.

Our life is what our thoughts make it.

A man is known by the company he keeps. A company is known by the men it keeps.

If we do not plant knowledge when young, it will give us no shade when we are old.

It is not in the still calm of life or the repose of a pacific station that great characters are formed. The habits of a vigorous mind are formed in contending with difficulties.

What we hope ever to do with ease, we must learn first to do with diligence.

Our life is what our thoughts make it.

Most of the change we think we see in life is due to truths being in and out of favor.

Education … is a process of living and not a preparation for future living.

If you must play, decide on three things at the start: the rules of the game, the stakes, and the quitting time.

They can because they think they can.

If you would escape moral and physical assassination, do nothing, say nothing, be nothing — court obscurity, for only in oblivion does safety lie.

I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.

If you do something with your whole heart and it’s a mistake, you can live with that.

Attach yourself to those who advise you rather than praise you.

One who fears failure limits his activities. Failure is only the opportunity to more intelligently begin again.

Only 10% of people actually succeed at what they set out to accomplish. Another 10% accept defeat and try to resolve their feelings of anger and desperation by turning to drugs, alcohol and other obsessions. Finally, 80% of the population simply endures their frustration and blame their lack of success on circumstances.

The world is changed not by the self-regarding, but by men and women prepared to make fools of themselves.

Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work at hand. The sun’s rays do not burn until brought to a focus.

Happiness lies not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort.

You are what you do. If you do boring, stupid, monotonous work, chances are you’ll end up boring, stupid, and monotonous.

The man who can drive himself further once the effort gets painful is the man who will win.

A problem well stated is a problem half solved.

Discontent is the source of all trouble, but also of all progress, in individuals and nations.

We’ve all got both light and dark inside us. What matters is the part we choose to act on. That’s who we really are.

Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.

Manage yourself, so others won’t have to.

A satisfied customer is the best business strategy of all.

He who conquers others is strong; He who conquers himself is mighty.

A key skill for all successful leaders is the ability to continuously improve themselves.

Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler.

It is better to take many small steps in the right direction than to make a great leap forward only to stumble backward.

Doubt whom you will, but never yourself.

Most people live and die with their music still unplayed. They never dare to try.

I do not live for what the world thinks of me, but for what I think of myself..

There is always an easy solution to every human problem–neat, plausible, and wrong.

Whenever you’re in conflict with someone, there is one factor that can make the difference between damaging your relationship and deepening it. That factor is attitude.

You are surrounded by hundreds of people more timid than you are.

Nothing great in the world has been accomplished without passion.

I’m convinced that about half of what separates the successful entrepreneurs from the unsuccessful ones is pure perseverance. It is so hard.

People admire your strengths, but they love your vulnerability.

You have reached the pinnacle of success as soon as you become uninterested in money, compliments, or publicity.

We may encounter many defeats, but we must not be defeated.

The supreme accomplishment is to blur the line between work and play.

Perseverance is not a long race; it is many short races one after another.

Nothing great in the world has been accomplished without passion.

The chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they are too strong to be broken.

The crucible is an essential element in the process of becoming a leader. No matter how cruel the testing, they become more optimistic and more open to experience.

We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.

We are social creatures to the inmost centre of our being. The notion that one can begin anything at all from scratch, free from the past, or unindebted to others, could not conceivably be more wrong.

Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending.

One must learn by doing the thing; though you think you know it, you have no certainty until you try.

The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough.

Experience is a jewel, and it had need be so, for it is often purchased at an infinite rate.

Do not be too timid and squeamish about your reactions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.

People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing – that’s why we recommend it daily.

Whenever you do a thing, act as if all the world were watching.

We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.

The basis of insincerity is the idealized image we hold of ourselves and wish to impose on others.

In prosperity, our friends know us; in adversity, we know our friends.

You’ve got to be very careful if you don’t know where you are going, because you might not get there.

Care about people’s approval and you will be their prisoner.

I have learned over the years that when one’s mind is made up, this diminishes fear; knowing what must be done does away with fear.

Anxiety is practicing failure in advance. Anxiety is needless and imaginary. It’s fear about fear, fear that means nothing.

Our [delusions of achievement, status and contributions] become a serious liability when we need to change. We sit there with the same godlike feelings, and when someone tries to make us change our ways we regard them with unadulterated bafflement.

If we don’t change, we don’t grow. If we don’t grow, we are not really living. Growth demands a temporary surrender of security. It may mean a giving up of familiar but limiting patterns, safe but unrewarding work, values no longer believed in, relationships that have lost their meaning. As Dostoevsky put it, ‘taking a new step, uttering a new word, is what people fear most.’ The real fear should be the opposite course.

I have always supported measures and principles and not men. I have acted fearless and independent and I never will regret my course. I would rather be politically buried than to be hypocritically immortalized.

Three grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.

It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.

Everyone can rise above their circumstances and achieve success if they are dedicated to and passionate about what they do.

A teacher who is attempting to teach, without inspiring the pupil with a desire to learn, is hammering on a cold iron.

The most perfect technique is that which is not noticed at all.

The goal is not always meant to be reached, but to serve as a mark for our aim.

The great thing in this world is not so much where you stand, as in what direction you are moving.

The battles that count aren’t the ones for gold medals. The struggles within yourself — the invisible, inevitable battles inside all of us — that’s where it’s at.

Fortune favors the brave.

The only person who is educated is the one who has learned how to learn and change.

Time is the most precious element of human existence. The successful person knows how to put energy into time and how to draw success from time.

A man who works with his hands is a laborer; a man who works with his hands and his brain is a craftsman; but a man who works with his hands and his brain and his heart is an artist.

Difficulties strengthen the mind, as labor does the body.

Fortune favors the audacious.

There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.

Leadership does not always wear the harness of compromise.

An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes which can be made in a very narrow field.

The actions of men are the best interpreters of their thoughts.

The illiterate of the future are not those who cannot read or write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.

My strength lies solely in my tenacity.

Everything comes to him who hustles while he waits.

If people knew how hard I worked to get my mastery, it wouldn’t seem so wonderful after all.