Catalyst Quotes

“Scare the World – Be Who You Are”

“One day I just woke up and realized that I can’t touch yesterday.  So why the heck was I letting it touch me?”   (Steve Maraboli)

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“I am made and remade continually.  Different people draw different words from me.”   (Virginia Woolf, The Waves)

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“And I realize that no matter where I am, whether in a little room full of thought, or in this endless universe of stars and mountains, it’s all in my mind.”   (Jack Kerouac, Lonesome Traveler)

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“I know now, after fifty years, that the finding/losing, forgetting/remembering, leaving/returning, never stops.  The whole of life is about another chance, and while we are alive, till the very end, there is always another chance.”   (Jeanette Winterson, Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?)

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“Stop looking at the past and all the things you can’t change.  They’re done and over with. Now is the time for you to look to the future, grasp it by the hand, and decide where you want to go.”   (Chasing Nikki, Lacey Weatherford)

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“Maybe happiness is this:  not feeling like you should be elsewhere, doing something else, being someone else.”   (Eric Weiner, In the Geography of Bliss)

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“Scare the world:  Be exactly who you say you are and tell the truth.”   (The Shock of Honesty)

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“It Is Up to Me”

“We must look at the lens through which we see the world, as well as the world we see, and that the lens itself shapes how we interpret the world.”   (Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People:  Powerful Lessons in Personal Change)

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“You can become blind by seeing each day as a similar one.  Each day is a different one, each day brings a miracle of its own.  It’s just a matter of paying attention to this miracle.”  (Stephen Covey)

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“Just look to those who already possess as you wish to possess or who have already achieved as you wish to achieve and ask yourself whether or not they have some special gift that you don’t have?  If they have more angels than you?  If they’re any more loved than you are now loved? If they have suffered more, worked harder, or waited longer than you?  If I would permit them to be ‘luckier’ or have it easier than you?  And you will see, after careful consideration, that their success depended upon none of these things.  It arrived simply because they expected it to arrive, and then lived their lives accordingly.

Boom, there it is.      (signed)   The Universe”   (Mike Dooley, Notes from the Universe, August 14, 2014)

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“In order to win, you must expect to win.”   (Richard Bach)

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“Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.”   (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

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“The ten most powerful 2-letter words in the English language:   ‘If it is to be it is up to me.’”   (William H. Johnsen)

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It Takes Courage to Grow Up

“The greatest discovery of our generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind.  As you think, so shall you be.”   (William James)

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“We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”   (Albert Einstein)

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“The real tragedy of life is not that each of us doesn’t have enough strengths, it’s that we fail to use the ones we have.”   (Marcus Buckingham and Donald O. Clifton, Now Discover Your Strengths)

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“What can we gain by sailing to the moon if we are not able to cross the abyss that separates us from ourselves?  This is the most important of all voyages of discovery, and without it, all the rest are not only useless, but disastrous.”   (Thomas Merton)

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“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”   (Eleanor Roosevelt)

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“It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.”   (e. e. cummings)

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“We all have possibilities we don’t know about.

We can do things we don’t even dream we can do.”   (Dale Carnegie)

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“You Are Now at a Crossroad” / “There is No Such Thing as ‘Should’”

“Life is the sum of all of your choices.”   (Albert Camus)

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“You are now at a crossroad.  This is your opportunity to make the most important decision you will ever make.  Forget your past.  Who are you now? Who have you decided you really are now?  Don’t think about who you have been.  Who are you now?  Who have you decided to become?  Make this decision consciously.  Make it carefully.  Make it powerfully.”   (Anthony Robbins)

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“The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts: therefore, guard accordingly, and take care that you entertain no notion unsuitable to virtue and reasonable nature.”   (Marcus Aurelius Antoninus)

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“The three grand essentials of happiness are:  something to do, someone to love, and something to hope for.”   (Alexander Chalmers)

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“Risk more than others think is safe.  Care more than others think is wise.  Dream more than others think is practical.  Expect more than others thinks is possible.”   (Cadet Maxim)

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“There is no such thing as ‘should’.  You shouldn’t do anything you don’t want to do. You shouldn’t work a job you don’t like.  You shouldn’t hang out with people that don’t make you happy.  You shouldn’t eat food that doesn’t make you feel good.  You shouldn’t do anything that doesn’t make you feel the way you want to feel.

Be honest with yourself.  Change ‘should’ to ‘want” in your sentences and if whatever it is still seems like a good idea go for it, if not, don’t.

Except maybe go to the dentist, you should probably do that.”   (Uplifted Vibrations)

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“You are free to believe what you choose and what you do attest to what you believe.”   (A Course in Miracles)

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“You just have to decide if you’re a Tigger or an Eeyore.”  (Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture)

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“I Can Believe”

“I can believe things that are true and things that aren’t true and I can believe things where nobody knows if they’re true or not.

I can believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and the Beatles and Marilyn Monroe and Elvis and Mister Ed.  Listen – I believe that people are perfectible, that knowledge is infinite, that the world is run by secret banking cartels and is visited by aliens on a regular basis, nice ones that look like wrinkled lemurs and bad ones who mutilate cattle and want our water and our women.

I believe that the future sucks and I believe that the future rocks and I believe that one day White Buffalo Woman is going to come back and kick everyone’s ass.  I believe that all men are just overgrown boys with deep problems communicating and that the decline in good sex in America is coincident with the decline in drive-in movie theaters from state to state. …

I believe that mankind’s destiny lies in the stars.  I believe that candy really did taste better when I was a kid, that it’s aerodynamically impossible for a bumble bee to fly, that light is a wave and a particle, that there’s a cat in a box somewhere who’s alive and dead at the same time (although if they don’t ever open the box to feed it it’ll eventually just be two different kinds of dead), and that there are stars in the universe billions of years older than the universe itself.

I believe in a personal god who cares about me and worries and oversees everything I do.  I believe in an impersonal god who set the universe in motion and went off to hang with her girlfriends and doesn’t even know that I’m alive.  I believe in an empty and godless universe of causal chaos, background noise, and sheer blind luck.

I believe that anyone who says sex is overrated just hasn’t done it properly. I believe that anyone who claims to know what’s going on will lie about the little things too.

I believe in absolute honesty and sensible social lies.  I believe in a woman’s right to choose, a baby’s right to live, that while all human life is sacred there’s nothing wrong with the death penalty if you can trust the legal system implicitly, and that no one but a moron would ever trust the legal system.

I believe that life is a game, that life is a cruel joke, and that life is what happens when you’re alive and that you might as well lie back and enjoy it.”   (Neil Gaiman, American Gods: The Author’s Preferred Text)

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“Some believe there is nothing one man or one woman can do against the enormous array of the world’s ills — against misery, against ignorance, or injustice and violence.  Yet many of the world’s great movements, of thought and action, have flowed from the work of a single man. A young monk began the Protestant reformation, a young general extended an empire from Macedonia to the borders of the earth, and a young woman reclaimed the territory of France. It was a young Italian explorer who discovered the World, and 32 year old Thomas Jefferson who proclaimed that all men are created equal.  ‘Give me a place to stand,’ said Archimedes, and I will move the world.’  These men moved the world, and so can we all.”   (Robert F. Kennedy)

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“There are no failures, only quitters.”   (Russell Simmons)

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“Think of Everything” / “Know What to Do, and THEN Do Your Best”

“Think of everything, all of it:  every mountain before you, every pound you carry, every dollar you wish to manifest… as if it were just pretend.

Suddenly – dominion over all things isn’t so intimidating, huh?  You can have (or have not) whatever you are capable of pretending you have (or have not).

Tallyho,    

        (signed)    The Universe”   (Mike Dooley, Notes from the Universe, 5.14.14) 

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“If you don’t design your own life plan, changes are you will fall into someone else’s plan.  And guess what they have planned for you – not much.”   (Jim Rohn)

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“Anything on earth you want to do is play.  Anything on earth you have to do is work.  Play will never kill you, work will.  I never worked a day in my life.”   (Dr. Leila Denmark, 100 years old)

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“It’s never too late to have a happy childhood.”   (Tom Robbins, Still Life with Woodpecker)

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“Direction determines destination.  So here is a question you must ask yourself, ‘Are all the disciplines that I’m currently engaged in taking me where I want to go?’  What an important question to ask yourself at the beginning of the month, the beginning of the week, the beginning of the day.  Because here is what you don’t ever want to do — kid yourself.  Kid your neighbor, kid me and kid the marketplace, but don’t kid yourself — fingers crossed — hoping you will arrive at a good destination when you’re not even headed that way.”   (Jim Rohn)

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“If you do the thing you think you cannot do, you’ll feel your resistance; your hope, your dignity, and your courage grow stronger.  You will someday face harder choices that very well might require more courage.  And when those moments come and you choose well, your courage will be recognized by those who matter most to you.  When your children see you choose, without hesitation, without remark, to value virtue more than security, to love more than you fear, they will learn what courage looks like and what love serves, and they will dread its absence. 

We’re all afraid of something.  The one fear we must all guard against is the fear of ourselves.  Don’t let the sensation of fear convince you that you’re too weak to have courage.  Fear is the opportunity for courage, not proof of cowardice.  No one is born a coward.  We were meant to love.  And we were meant to have the courage for it.”   (Senator John McCain, “In Search of Courage”, Fast Company Magazine, September 2004)

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“It is not enough to do your best; you must know what to do, and THEN do your best.”   (W. Edwards Deming)

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“All the World’s a Stage” / “Once in a While You Get Shown the Light”

“All the world’s a stage and most of us are desperately unrehearsed.”   (Sean O’Casey) 

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“We make messes of our lives, but every now and then, we manage to do something that’s exactly right.  The challenge is figuring out which is which.”   (Jodi Picoult)

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“There will be a few times in your life when all your instincts will tell you to do something, something that defies logic, upsets your plans, and may seem crazy to others. When that happens, you do it.  Listen to your instincts and ignore everything else.  Ignore logic, ignore the odds, ignore the complications, and just go for it.”   (Judith McNaught)

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“Any life, no matter how long and complex it may be, is made up of a single moment — the moment in which a man finds out, once and for all, who he is.”   (Jorge Luis Borges)

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“Never follow somebody else’s path; it doesn’t work the same way twice for anyone…the path follows you and rolls up behind you as you walk, forcing the next person to find their own way.”   (J. Michael Straczynski)

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“My spiritual teachers, in order of the power of their teachings:

1.  People who annoy the shit out of me
2. All other spiritual teachers.”   (John Ptacek)

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“Once in a while you get shown the light, in the strangest of places if you look at it right”   (Robert Hunter)

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“Make a Radical Change in Your Lifestyle” / “If You Never Did, You Should”

“Don’t dwell on negative thoughts, you loser.”   (God, @TheTweetOfGod)

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“Life is nothing but a long-ass, complex series of moments, each of which is filled to the brim with countless opportunities.  They’re right there, in front of and around and inside each and every one of us, constantly.”   (Manimal)

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“I believe we were created to evolve.  Otherwise Jesus would have said, ‘Now, don’t do a thing until I get back!’”   (Swami Beyondananda)

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“Almost nothing important that ever happens to you happens because you engineer it.  Destiny has no beeper; destiny always leans trench-coated out of an alley with some sort of ‘pssstt’ that you usually can’t even hear because you’re in such a rush to do something important you’ve tried to engineer.”   (David Foster Wallace)

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“It is a bit embarrassing to have been concerned with the human problem all one’s life and find at the end that one has no more to offer by way of advice than ‘try to be a little kinder.’”   (Aldous Huxley)

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“Make a radical change in your lifestyle and begin to boldly do things which you may previously never have thought of doing, or been too hesitant to attempt.  So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservation, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secured future.  The very basic core of a man’s living spirit is his passion for adventure.  The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.  If you want to get more out of life, you must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life that will at first appear to you as crazy.  But once you become accustomed to such a life you will see its full meaning and its incredible beauty.”   (Jon Krakauer, Into the Wild)

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“If you never did, you should.  These things are fun, and fun is good.”   (Dr. Seuss)

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“One Defines Oneself by Reinvention” / “You, Too, Can Become Great”

“The thoughtless, the ignorant, and the indolent, seeing only the apparent effects of things and not the things themselves, talk of luck, of fortune, and chance.…  They do not see the trials and failures and struggles which these men have voluntarily encountered in order to gain their experience; have no knowledge of the sacrifices they have made, of the undaunted efforts they have put forth, of the faith they have exercised, that they might overcome the apparently insurmountable, and realize the Vision of their heart.  They do not know the darkness and the heartaches; they only see the light and joy, and call it ‘luck’; do not see the long and arduous journey, but only behold the pleasant ‘good fortune’; do not understand the process; but only perceive the result, and call it ‘chance.’

In all human affairs there are efforts and there are results, and the strength of the effort is the measure of the result.”   (James Allen, As a Man Thinketh)

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“Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.”   (Robert F. Kennedy)

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“Once you’ve done the mental work, there comes a point where you have to throw yourself into the action and put your heart on the line.  That means not only being brave, but being passionate towards yourself, your teammates and your opponents.”   (Phil Jackson)

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“It’s like there’s this person that you want to be for other people … To make them happy and make them proud of you.  And then there’s yourself.  Sometimes it’s really hard to tell where one ends and the other begins.”   (Dawson Creek)

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“I believe that one defines oneself by reinvention.  To not be like your parents.  To not be like your friends.  To be yourself.  To cut yourself out of stone.”   (Henry Rollins)

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“Really great people make you feel that you, too, can become great.”   (Mark Twain)

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“Waste no more time talking about great souls and how they should be.  Become one yourself!”   (Marcus Aurelius Antoninus)

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“What You Think You Become”

“The most common form of despair is not being who you are.”

(Søren Kierkegaard)

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“How do we forgive ourselves for all of the things we did not become?”

(David ‘Doc’ Luben, 14 Lines from Love Letters or Suicide Notes)

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“Don’t be too hard on yourself.  There are plenty of people willing to do that for you.  Love yourself and be proud of everything that you do.  Even mistakes mean you’re trying.”

(Susan Gale)

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“What horrifies me most is the idea of being useless:  well-educated, brilliantly promising, and fading out into an indifferent middle age.”

(Sylvia Plath)

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“And why do we fall?  So we can learn to pick ourselves up.”

(Thomas Wayne, ‘Batman Begins’)

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“If you do what you need, you’re surviving.  If you do what you want, you’re living.”  

(Unknown Author)

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“Who will tell whether one happy moment of love or the joy of breathing or walking on a bright morning and smelling the fresh air, is not worth all the suffering and effort which life implies.”

(Erich Fromm)

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“Be so good they can’t ignore you.”

(Steve Martin)

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“The mind is everything.  What you think you become.”

(Buddha)

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