For decades I have been a huge fan of quotes. They’re nuggets of wisdom from people far more intelligent than I and can verify this because I didn’t think of them and I didn’t say them. I wish I did.
Voices is simply a curated list of my favorite quotes. They have been very helpful to me over the years and so I thought I’d share them with you; perhaps some of them will strike a chord with you as well.
They come from resources far and wide, and I add to the list from time to time. I also plan to expound on some of them as the basis of some posts in the My Brain and I blog. If I do, they will link to the post.
You may however find an occasional Rudyism in the list which is something I tend to say. Perhaps I said it first, perhaps not, but they are my go-to phrases that I’ve borrowed, tweaked or simply made up myself. They are my truths and so I thought I’d include them in this list just in case they may benefit you. Feel free to steal them and make them your own -ism if you think they can serve you as well.
Enjoy!
Voices of Change
We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them. - Albert Einstein
The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking. - Albert Einstein
All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another. - Anatole France
When people are ready to, they change. They never do it before then, and sometimes they die before they get around to it. You can't make them change if they don't want to, just like when they do want to, you can't stop them. - Andy Warhol
When you're finished changing, you're finished. - Benjamin Franklin
Know what's weird? Day by day, nothing seems to change. But pretty soon, everything's different. - Bill Watterson
Never too old, never too bad, never too late, never too sick to start from scratch once again. - Bikram Choudhury
t may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad. - C. S. Lewis
Only I can change my life. No one can do it for me. - Carol Burnett
If you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping with a mosquito. - Dalai Lama
All great changes are preceded by chaos. - Deepak Chopra
There are two primary choices in life: to accept conditions as they exist, or accept the responsibility for changing them. - Denis Waitley
Neither a wise man nor a brave man lies down on the tracks of history to wait for the train of the future to run over him. - Dwight D. Eisenhower
Some changes look negative on the surface but you will soon realize that space is being created in your life for something new to emerge. - Eckhart Tolle
You don't drown by falling in the water; you drown by staying there. - Edwin Louis Cole
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. - Frederick Douglass
Progress is impossible without change; and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything. - George Bernard Shaw
One day your life will flash before your eyes. Make sure it's worth watching - Gerard Way
Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next. - Gilda Radner
The first problem for all of us, men and women, is not to learn, but to unlearn. - Gloria Steinem
'Come to the edge.' 'We can't. We're afraid.' 'Come to the edge.' 'We can't. We will fall!' 'Come to the edge.' And they came. And he pushed them. And they flew. - Guillaume Apollinaire
Adapt or perish, now as ever, is nature's inexorable imperative. - H. G. Wells
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. - H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
We change our behavior when the pain of staying the same becomes greater than the pain of changing. Consequences give us the pain that motivates us to change. - Henry Cloud
You only have control over three things in your life - the thoughts you think, the images you visualize, and the actions you take (your behavior). How you use these three things determines everything you experience. If you don't like what you are producing and experiencing, you have to change your responses. - Jack Canfield
Change before you have to. - Jack Welch
People can cry much easier than they can change. - James A. Baldwin
You must take personal responsibility. You cannot change the circumstances, the seasons, or the wind, but you can change yourself. That is something you have charge of. - Jim Rohn
The first place we lose the battle is in our own thinking. If you think it is permanent then it's permanent. If you think you've reached your limits then you have. If you think you will never get well then you won't. You have to change your thinking. You need to see everything that's holding you back, every obstacle, every limitation as only temporary. - Joel Osteen
History shows us that the people who end up changing the world - the great political, social, scientific, technological, artistic, even sports revolutionaries - are always nuts, until they are right, and then they are geniuses. - John Eliot
Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future. - John F. Kennedy
We must let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us. - Joseph Campbell
Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase. - Martin Luther King, Jr.
That's the risk you take if you change: that people you've been involved with won't like the new you. But other people who do will come along. - Lisa Alther
Change of any sort requires courage. - Mary Anne Radmacher
If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude. - Maya Angelou
Change your thoughts and you change your world. - Norman Vincent Peale
We now accept the fact that learning is a lifelong process of keeping abreast of change. And the most pressing task is to teach people how to learn. - Peter Drucker
Instead of wondering when your next vacation is, maybe you should set up a life you don't need to escape from. - Seth Godin
Life is like an ever-shifting kaleidoscope - a slight change, and all patterns alter. - Sharon Salzberg
To achieve goals you've never achieved before, you need to start doing things you've never done before. - Stephen Covey
Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. - Steve Jobs
You cannot change how someone thinks, but you can give them a tool to use which will lead them to think differently. - R. Buckminster Fuller
There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it's going to be a butterfly. - R. Buckminster Fuller
We change whether we like it or not. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
We live in a moment of history where change is so speeded up that we begin to see the present only when it is already disappearing. - R. D. Laing
A tiny change today brings a dramatically different tomorrow. - Richard Bach
Knowing you need to make a change isn't enough. You've got to find the guts to do it. - Robert Kiyosaki
When the going gets tough, the tough reinvent. - RuPaul
If you would attain to what you are not yet, you must always be displeased by what you are. For where you are pleased with yourself there you have remained. Keep adding, keep walking, keep advancing. - Saint Augustine
When we are no longer able to change a situation - we are challenged to change ourselves. - Viktor E. Frankl
Others can stop you temporarily - you are the only one who can do it permanently. - Zig Ziglar
Voices of the Arts
A designer has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
- Antoine de Saint Exupéry
The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.
- Aristotle
Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself, but talent instantly recognizes genius.
- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Don’t worry about a thing, cause every little thing gonna be all right.
- Bob Marley
Think left and think right and think low and think high.
Oh, the thinks you can think up if only you try!
- Dr. Seuss
Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things that escape those who dream only by night.
- Edgar Allan Poe
I don't think there's any artist of any value who doesn't doubt what they're doing.
- Francis Ford Coppola
In every triumph there is a lot of try.
- Frank Tyger
Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine and at last you create what you will.
- George Bernard Shaw
You see things; and you say, Why? But I dream things that never were; and I say, Why not?
- George Bernard Shaw
An opinion should be the result of thought, not a substitute for it.
- Jef Mallett
Study the science of art. Study the art of science. Develop your senses - especially learn how to see. Realize that everything connects to everything else.
- Leonardo Da Vinci
The artist sees what others only catch a glimpse of.
- Leonardo Da Vinci
I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my ship.
- Lousia May Alcott
Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Do the most important people in you life envision a positive future for you? Do they see great things ahead of you?
- Mark Twain
The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one.
- Mark Twain
Inside every block of stone or marble dwells a beautiful statue; one need only to remove the excess material to reveal the work of art within.
- Michelangelo
"The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls."
- Pablo Picasso
Every great and commanding movement in the annals of the world is the triumph of enthusiasm.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
Be yourself; no base imitator of another, but your best self. There is something which you can do better than another. Listen to the inward voice and bravely obey that. Do the things at which you are great, not what you were never made for.
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
Rule #6: Lighten Up
- Rosamund Zande
Only mediocre people are always at their best.
- Somerset Maugham
Wisdom comes from experience. Experience is often a result of lack of wisdom.
- Terry Pratchett
The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and try to put things in it.
- Terry Pratchett
My future’s so bright I gotta wear shades.
- Timbuk3
Failure is the condiment that gives success it's flavor.
- Truman Capote
Voices of Business & Entrepreneurship
Nobody talks of entrepreneurship as survival, but that's exactly what it is and what nurtures creative thinking.
- Anita Roddick
Energy and persistence conquer all things.
- Benjamin Franklin
Today we sailed on.
- Christopher Columbus
If you can't sleep, then get up and do something instead of lying there and worrying. It's the worry that gets you, not the loss of sleep.
- Dale Carnegie
I want to have fun doing my work. I want the kind of people I can sit over dinner with on a weekend. In my profession you need to be able to trust your people. I want the kind of people I like in my heart-people I can still like when I’m exhausted at 3am.
- Egon Zehnder
Choose Well.
- Ewing Marion Kauffman
Make a job, don’t take a job.
- Ewing Marion Kauffman
None of us are as smart as all of us.
– Japanese proverb
Always remember...the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing!
- Jim Barksdale
Take our own company as an example: We're living proof, we jump with our own parachutes.
- Jim Barksdale
We have 3 rules at Netscape... The first rule is if you see a snake, don't call committees, don't call your buddies, don't form a team, don't get a meeting together, just kill the snake. The second rule is don't go back and play with dead snakes. Too many people waste too much time on decisions that have already been made. And the third rule of snakes is: all opportunities start out looking like snakes.
- Jim Barksdale
First Who…then What.
- Jim Collins
It is no harder to build something great than to build something good. It might be statistically more rare to reach greatness, but it does not require more suffering than perpetuating mediocrity.
- Jim Collins
Put your best people on your best opportunities. Not on your biggest problems.
- Jim Collins
If you can’t imagine it, you probably will not be able to achieve it.
- John C. Maxwell
The learning process can be summarized in the following 5 steps: 1. Observe 2. Act. 3. Evaluate. 4. Readjust. 5. Go back to step 2
- John C. Maxwell
You can’t change yesterday. You can’t count on tomorrow. But you can choose what you do today.
- John C. Maxwell
In the world today there’s plenty of technology, plenty of entrepreneurs, plenty of money, plenty of venture capital. What’s in short supply is great teams.
- John Doerr
When I found that I lacked the knowledge I needed to push forward in a particular area, I’d fine the resource and go learn it.
- John Netto
Failing to prepare is preparing to fail.
- John Wooden
There are going to be times when we can’t wait for somebody. Now, you’re either on the bus or off the bus.
- Ken Kesey
The wicked leader is he whom the people revile.
The good leader is he whom the people revere.
The great leader is he of whom the people say, we did it ourselves.
- Lao Tzu
I have had all of the disadvantages required for success.
- Larry Ellison
A good rule of thumb for many things in life holds that things take longer to happen than you think they will, and then happen faster than you thought they could.
- Larry Summers
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.
- Margaret Mead
We set our own limitations and our own boundaries.
- Marion Luna Brem
Aerodynamically, the bumble bee shouldn't be able to fly, but the bumble bee doesn't know it so it goes on flying anyway.
- Mary Kay Ash
We cannot become what we need to be by re-examining what we are.
- Max DePree
The first great step of any entrepreneur is to get kicked out of High School.
- Nick Graham
More persons, on the whole, are humbugged by believing in nothing, than by believing too much.
- P.T. Barnum
What should exist? To me, that's the most exciting question imaginable. What do we need that we don't have? How can we realize our potential?
- Paul Allen
Are you green and growing or ripe and rotting?
- Ray Kroc
You're only as good as the people you hire.
- Ray Kroc
Success is a little like wrestling a gorilla. You don’t quit when you’re tired. You quit when the gorilla is tired.
- Robert Strauss, Recipient Presidential Medal of Freedom
Keep in mind that neither success nor failure is ever final.
- Roger Babson
Property may be destroyed and money may lose its purchasing power; but, character, health, knowledge and good judgement will always be in demand under all conditions.
- Roger Babson
The finest command of language is often shown by saying nothing.
- Roger Babson
An entrepreneur tends to bite off a little more than he can chew hoping he'll quickly learn how to chew it.
- Roy Ash
High expectations are the key to everything.
- Sam Walton
I want kids to think: when I grow up, shall I be a pop star, a footballer, or an entrepreneur?
- Simon Woodroffe
Motto: CAN I? standing for Constant And Never ending Innovation.
- Simon Woodroffe
I want to put a ding in the universe.
- Steve Jobs
Why join the navy if you can be a pirate?
- Steve Jobs
My message to you is: Be courageous! I have lived a long time. I have seen history repeat itself again and again. I have seen many depressions in business. Always America has com on stronger and more prosperous. Be as brave as your fathers before you. Have faith! Go forward!
- Thomas Edison
Many of life's failures are experienced by people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.
- Thomas Edison
Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.
-Thomas Edison
Pretty much everything will come to him who hustles while he waits. I believe that restlessness is discontent, and discontent is merely the first necessity of progress. Show me a thoroughly satisfied man and I will show you a failure.
- Thomas Edison
Unfortunately, there seems to be far more opportunity out there than ability. We should remember that good fortune often happens when opportunity meets with preparation.
- Thomas Edison
If you want to achieve excellence, you can get there today. As of this second, quit doing less-than-excellent work.
- Thomas J. Watson
The great accomplishments of man have resulted from the transmission of ideas and enthusiasm.
- Thomas J. Watson
The way to succeed is to double your error rate.
- Thomas J. Watson
Risk comes from not knowing what you're doing.
- Warren Buffett
Voices of Science & Engineering
I never discovered anything with my rational mind.
- Albert Einstein
If you don't have a consensus that it's nonsense, you don't have a breakthrough.
- Burt Rutan
Research should be defined as doing something where half of the people think that’s impossible. And half of them think ...eehhhh, maybe that will work. Whenever there’s a breakthrough, a true breakthrough, you can go back and find a time period when the consensus was, well that’s nonsense. So what that means is that a true creative researcher must have confidence in nonsense.
- Burt Rutan
We’re going to the stars. This is so cool.
- Burt Rutan
What I do is I find the fun stuff to experiment with and learn from. Then I go out and find something else to learn from.
- Burt Rutan
If parents pass enthusiasm along to their children, they will leave them an estate of incalculable value.
- Thomas Edison
If we all did the things we are really capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves.
- Thomas Edison
Many of life's failures are experienced by people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.
- Thomas Edison
My message to you is: Be courageous! I have lived a long time. I have seen history repeat itself again and again. I have seen many depressions in business. Always America has com on stronger and more prosperous. Be as brave as your fathers before you. Have faith! Go forward!
- Thomas Edison
Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.
-Thomas Edison
Pretty much everything will come to him who hustles while he waits. I believe that restlessness is discontent, and discontent is merely the first necessity of progress. Show me a thoroughly satisfied man and I will show you a failure.
- Thomas Edison
Unfortunately, there seems to be far more opportunity out there than ability. We should remember that good fortune often happens when opportunity meets with preparation.
- Thomas Edison
Voices of Leadership
As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others.
- Bill Gates
I have come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element. It is my personal approach that crates the climate. It is my daily mood that makes the weather. I possess tremendous power to make life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration, I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis is escalated or de-escalated, and a person is humanized or de-humanized. If we treat people as they are, we make them worse. If we treat people as they ought to be, we help them become what they are capable of becoming.
- Goethe
Voices of Learning & Education
If parents pass enthusiasm along to their children, they will leave them an estate of incalculable value.
- Thomas Edison
An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.
- Benjamin Franklin
From his neck down a man is worth a couple of dollars a day, from his neck up he is worth anything that his brain can produce.
- Thomas Edison
Learn something new every day.
- Barry Farber
If we stand still, we move backward as the world keeps moving forward without us.
- Barry Farber
To be a teacher is to be a prophet. We are not preparing children for the world we have lived in but for a future that we can barely imagine.
- Gordon Brown, Former Dean of the MIT Engineering School
Are you a Tigger or an Eyore?
- Randy Pausch
Voices of Politics
I will prepare and someday my chance will come.
- Abraham Lincoln
You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.
- Abraham Lincoln
Behind the storm of daily conflict and crisis, the dramatic confrontations, the tumult of political struggle, the poet, the artist, the musician, continues the quiet work of centuries, building bridges of experience between peoples, reminding man of the universality of his feelings and desires and despairs, and reminding him that the forces that unite are deeper than those that divide.
- John F. Kennedy
Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak.; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.
- Winston Churchill
If you're going through hell, keep going.
- Winston Churchill
Voices of Wit & Wisdom
Blessed are they that laugh at themselves, for they shall never cease to be entertained.
- Chinese Proverb
Security is mostly superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.
- Helen Keller
A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.
- Herm Albright
A man who procrastinates in his choosing will inevitably have his choice made for him by circumstance.
- Hunter S. Thompson
An amazing thing, the human brain. Capable of understanding incredibly complex and intricate concepts. Yet at times unable to recognize the obvious and simple.
- Jay Abraham
No poem was ever written by a drinker of water.
- Homer, Greek Poet (not Simpson)
True knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing.
- Socrates
To move the world we must first move ourselves.
- Socrates
Be the weird you want to see in the world.
- Unknown
Do not disregard your mistakes.
Money is not meant to be served.
Love your work, then you will find pleasure in mastering it.
Appreciate the many things that make your life so valuable.
Act the part and you will become the part.
Don’t criticize others when you are angry with yourself.
Don’t wait for the ideal time to begin something.
Stay on a clear course.
- Unknown book excerpt
Patience. Persistence. Perseverance.
- A very wise person
Luck is what happens when preparation meets with opportunity.
- Another very wise person
Voices of the Future
The best way to predict the future is to invent it.
- Alan Kay
We're only at the beginning of what we have to do here.
- Bill Gates
Traditional thinking is all about what is. Future thinking will also need to be about what can be.
- Edward de Bono
Voices of the Unknown
Be the weird you want to see in the world.
- Unknown
Do not disregard your mistakes.
Money is not meant to be served.
Love your work, then you will find pleasure in mastering it.
Appreciate the many things that make your life so valuable.
Act the part and you will become the part.
Don’t criticize others when you are angry with yourself.
Don’t wait for the ideal time to begin something.
Stay on a clear course.
- Unknown book excerpt
Patience. Persistence. Perseverance.
- A very wise person
Luck is what happens when preparation meets with opportunity.
- Another very wise person