Catalyst Quotes

“I’ll Give You Some Free Advice”

“’Witches are naturally nosy,’ said Miss Tick, standing up.  ‘Well, I must go.  I hope we shall meet again.  I will give you some free advice, though.’

‘Will it cost me anything?’

‘What?  I just said it was free!’ said Miss Tick.

‘Yes, but my father said that free advice often turns out to be expensive.’ said Tiffany.

Miss Tick sniffed. ‘You could say this advice is priceless,’ she said, ‘Are you listening?’

‘Yes,’ said Tiffany.

‘Good.  Now … if you trust in yourself…’

‘Yes?’

‘… and believe in your dreams …’

‘Yes?’

‘… and follow your star …’ Miss Tick went on,

‘Yes?’

“… you’ll still be beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren’t so lazy. Goodbye.”    (Terry Pratchett, The Wee Free Men)

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“Ever morning, until you dead in the ground, you gone have to make this decision.  You gone have to ask yourself, ‘Am I gone believe what them fools say about me today?’”    (Kathryn Stockett, The Help)

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“Everything that happens to you is a reflection of what you believe about yourself.  We cannot outperform our level of self-esteem.  We cannot draw to ourselves more than we think we are worth.”   (Iyana Vanzant)

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“Struggle is the food from which change is made, and the best time to make the most of a struggle is when it’s right in front of your face.

Now, I know that might sound a bit simplistic. But, too often we’re led to believe that struggling is a bad thing, or that we struggle because we’re doing something wrong.

I disagree. I look at struggle as an opportunity to grow. True struggle happens when you can sense what is not working for you and you’re willing to take the appropriate action to correct the situation. Those who accomplish change are willing to engage the struggle.”   (Danny Dreyer)

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“Believe there is a great power silently working all things for good, behave yourself and never mind the rest.”   (Beatrix Potter)

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“Make Your Soul Grow”

“Study the heart and the mind of man, and begin with your own.  Meditation and reflection must lay the foundation of that knowledge, but experience and practice must, and alone can, complete it.”   (Lord Chesterfield, Letter to his son, June 6, 1751)

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“It’s the heart afraid of breaking that never learns to dance.  It is the dream afraid of waking that never takes the chance.  It is the one who won’t be taken who cannot seem to give.  And the soul afraid of dying that never learns to live.”   (Bette Midler)

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“I see all this potential, and I see squandering.   …damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars.  Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy s**t we don’t need.  We’re the middle children of history, man.  No purpose or place.  We have no Great War.  No Great Depression.  Our Great War’s a spiritual war… our Great Depression is our lives.  We’ve all been raised on television to believe that one day we’d all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars.  But we won’t. And we’re slowly learning that fact.  And we’re very, very pissed off.”   (Chuck Palahniuk)

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“There’s a lot of fear connected with the inner journey because it penetrates our illusions.  Taking the inner journey will lead you into some very shadow places.  You’re going to learn things about yourself that you’ll wish you didn’t know.  There are monsters in there – monsters that you can’t control – but trying to keep them hidden will only give them greater power.”    (Parker Palmer, ‘Leader to Leader’)

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“The words ‘I am …’ are potent words; be careful what you hitch them to.  The thing you’re claiming has a way of reaching back and claiming you.”    (A. L. Kitselman)

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“To practice any art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow.  So do it.”   (Kurt Vonnegut)

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“Make Life Less Difficult for Each Other”

“Ask yourself whether the dream of heaven and greatness should be waiting for us in our graves – or whether it should be ours here and now and on this earth.”   (Ayn Rand)

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“Remember, if you ever need a helping hand, you’ll find one at the end of your arm.   As you grow older you will discover that you have two hands.  One for helping yourself, the other for helping others.”   (Audrey Hepburn)

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“Sometimes I get so caught up in my own problems that I forget how amazing the world is.”   (Wendeln Van Draanen)

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“A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved.”   (Kurt Vonnegut)

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“What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult for each other?”   (George Eliot)

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“Kindness consists in loving people more than they deserve.”   (Jacqueline Schiff)

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“Kindness is Everything in Life”

“We can spend our lives letting the world tell us who we are.  Sane or insane.  Saints or sex addicts.  Heroes or victims.  Letting history tell us how good or bad we are.  Letting our past decide our future.  Or we can decide for ourselves. And maybe it’s our job to invent something better.”    (Chuck Palahniuk, Choke)

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“Wisdom traditions both East and West speak of a deeper level of the mind.  This is your true self, and when you access it, your thoughts change.  Once thoughts change, then speech changes, and finally action.  Life consists of thinking, speaking, and acting; therefore, finding your true self creates a total transformation.”   (Deepak Chopra, Choosing Your True Self: The Breakthrough)

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“People who give, are given to.  People who care, are cared for.

And people who love … age slower, run faster, jump higher, eat healthier, tend to live in cottages, are as happy with friends as they are alone, climb more trees, skip when they could walk, kiss when they could talk, take the odd Friday off, experience faster manifestations, and are really popular with animals.

Love, baby.    (Signed) The Universe”    (Mike Dooley, Notes From the Universe)

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“Kindness, I’ve discovered, is everything in life.”   (Isaac Bashevis Singer)

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“Kindness in words creates confidence.  Kindness in thinking creates profoundness.  Kindness in giving creates love.”   (Lao Tzu)

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“Live simply that others might simply live.”    (Elizabeth Seaton)

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“Focus on One Thing”

“We all live under the same sky, but we don’t all have the same horizon.”   (Konrad Adenauer)

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“Do the difficult things while they are easy and do the great things while they are small.  A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.”   (Lao Tzu)

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“We all think we’re going to be great and we feel a little bit robbed when our expectations aren’t met.  But sometimes expectations sell us short.  Sometimes the expected simply pales in comparison to the unexpected.  You got to wonder why we cling to our expectations, because the expected is just what keeps us steady.  Standing.  Still, the unexpected is just the beginning; the unexpected is what changes our lives.”   (Grey’s Anatomy)

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“So, I’m going out there.  And I’m going to do the best I can.  People are going to get in my way.  Things are going to bring me down.  But I’m going to keep going.  I’m going to reach as far as I can, for everything I’ve ever wanted.  And I’m not giving up.  Because that’s what you do when your dreams are more important that your fears.  You go out there and ignore the odds.  You focus on one thing – that your dreams come true.”   (K. Boulden)

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“Courage is nothing less than the power to overcome danger, misfortune, fear, injustice, while continuing to affirm inwardly that life with all its sorrows is good; that everything is meaningful even if in a sense beyond our understanding.”   (Dorothy Thompson)

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“A Hero Is No Braver Than An Ordinary Man”

“The adventure of the hero is the adventure of being alive.”   (Joseph Campbell)

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“Anyone can slay a dragon  … but try waking up every morning and loving the world all over again.  That’s what takes a real hero.”    (Brian Adreas)

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“You risked your life, but what else have you ever risked?  Have you risked disapproval?  Have you ever risked economic security?  Have you ever risked a belief?  I see nothing particularly courageous about risking one’s life.  So you lose it, you go to your hero’s heaven and everything is milk and honey ’til the end of time.  Right? You get your reward and suffer no earthly consequences. That’s not courage.  Real courage is risking something that might force you to rethink your thoughts and suffer change and stretch consciousness.  Real courage is risking one’s clichés.”    (Tom Robbins)

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“Heroes didn’t leap tall buildings or stop bullets with an outstretched hand; they didn’t wear boots and capes. They bled, and they bruised, and their superpowers were as simple as listening, or loving.  Heroes were ordinary people who knew that even if their own lives were impossibly knotted, they could untangle someone else’s.  And maybe that one act could lead someone to rescue you right back.”   (Jodi Picoult, Second Glance)

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“Rose, I’m an addict with no work ethic who is likely going to go insane.  I’m not like you. I’m not a super-hero.”

“Not yet,” I said.”    (Richelle Mead, Last Sacrifice)

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“Everybody is special.  Everybody.  Everybody is a hero, a lover, a fool, a villain.  Everybody.  Everybody has their story to tell.”   (Alan Moore) 

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“A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is brave five minutes longer.”      (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

“That Moment Exists”

“We are afraid of losing what we have, whether it’s our life or our possessions and property.  But this fear evaporates when we understand that our life stories and the history of the world were written by the same hand.”    (Paulo Coelho)

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“If you obsess over whether you are making the right decision, you are basically assuming that the universe will reward you for one thing and punish you for another.

The universe has no fixed agenda.  Once you make any decision, it works around that decision.  There is no right or wrong, only a series of possibilities that shift with each thought, feeling, and action that you experience.

If this sounds too mystical, refer again to the body.  Every significant vital sign- body temperature, heart rate, oxygen consumption, hormone level, brain activity, and so on – alters the moment you decide to do anything.  Decisions are signals telling your body, mind, and environment to move in a certain direction.”     (Deepak Chopra, The Book of Secrets:  Unlocking the Hidden Dimensions of Your Life)

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“You don’t drown by falling in the water; you drown by staying there.”  (Edwin Louis Cole)     

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“You have to take risks, he said.  We will only understand the miracle of life fully when we allow the unexpected to happen.  Every day, God gives us the sun — and also one moment in which we have the ability to change everything that makes us unhappy.  Every day, we try to pretend that we haven’t perceived that moment, that it doesn’t exist — that today is the same as yesterday and will be the same as tomorrow.  But if people really pay attention to their everyday lives, they will discover that magic moment.  It may arrive in the instant when we are doing something mundane, like putting our front-door key in the lock; it may lie hidden in the quiet that follows the lunch hour or in the thousand and one things that all seem the same to us.  But that moment exists — a moment when all the power of the stars becomes a part of us and enables us to perform miracles.”   (Paulo Coelho, By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept)

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“It always seems impossible, until it is done.”    (Nelson Mandela)

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“Discover Our True Selves”

“I don’t care if you’re black, white, straight, bisexual, gay, lesbian, short, tall, fat, skinny, rich or poor.  If you’re nice to me, I’ll be nice to you.  Simple as that.”     – Eminem

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“How far you go in life depends on you being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant of the weak and the strong.  Because someday in life you will have been all of these.”    – George Washington Carver

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“Each of us is here to discover our true selves; that essentially we are spiritual beings who have taken manifestation in physical form; that we’re not human beings that have occasional spiritual experiences, that we’re spiritual beings that have occasional human experiences.”  – Deepak Chopra

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“’I’ve learned that everything happens for a reason,’ the yogi Krishnan told him. ‘Every event has a why and all adversity teaches us a lesson.  Never regret your past.  Accept it as the teacher that it is.’”   – Robin S. Sharma, The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari

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“The most incredible architecture is the architecture of Self, which is ever changing, evolving, revolving and has unlimited beauty and light inside which radiates outwards for everyone to see and feel.

With every in breathe you are adding to your life and every out breathe you are releasing what is not contributing to your life.  Every breathe is a re-birth.”   – Allan Rufus, The Master’s Sacred Knowledge

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“Learn From Your Mistakes”

“Fearlessness is not the same as the absence of fear.

The fearless person is well aware of the fear (he)/she faces.  The fear, though, becomes a compass, not a barrier.  It becomes a way to know what to do next, not an evil demon to be extinguished.

When we deny our fear, we make it stronger.

When we reassure the voice in our head by rationally reminding it of everything that will go right, we actually reinforce it.

Pushing back on fear doesn’t make us brave and it doesn’t make us fearless.  Acknowledging fear and moving on is a very different approach, one that permits it to exist without strengthening it.

Life without fear doesn’t last very long — you’ll be run over by a bus (or a boss) before you know it.  The fearless person, on the other hand, sees the world as it is (fear included) and then makes smart (and brave) decisions.”   – Seth Godin, Seth’s Blog 6.23.13

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“What is the single force that shapes the quality of our lives?  What power do we have that can change everything? … the answer is the power of choice.  It is our decisions, not our conditions that determine the quality of our lives.   Before we go any further, we need to understand that we are where we are today because of the decisions we’ve made —decisions about what to focus on, decisions about where to place our priorities, decisions about what things mean and decisions about what to do.

Success is a result of good judgment; good judgment is a result of experience, in most cases.  And what about experience?  Yes, experience is most often a result of bad judgment.

So here’s the good news:  The experience gained from bad judgment and bad decisions is unbelievably valuable — it’s priceless!  So don’t waste time beating yourself up over poor decisions you’ve made; learn from the experiences.  When people succeed, they celebrate. When they fail, they ponder.  They stop and think, ‘What happened here?’  What could I have done differently?  It’s only through self-evaluation that we learn how to make better decisions.

So, when you make mistakes, learn from them; use your experience to improve your judgment and make better decisions.    – Anthony Robbins, “It Is Your Choice”, Seeds of Success

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“I’ve learned so much from my mistakes …

I’m thinking of making a few more.”   – Unknown Author

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“There are no mistakes, no coincidences.  All events are blessings given to us to learn from.”   – Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

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“Life Isn’t About Keeping Score”

“Difficulties in your life do not come to destroy you, but to help you realize your hidden potential and power.  Let difficulties know that you too are difficult.”   – Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam

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“Your honesty,

Your love,

Your compassion

Should come from your inner being,

Not from teachings and scriptures.”     – Osho

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“Life isn’t about keeping score.  It’s not about how many people call you and it’s not about who you’ve dated, are dating or haven’t dated at all.  It isn’t about who you’ve kissed, what sport you play, or which girl or guy likes you.  It’s not about your shoes or your hair or the color of your skin or where you live or go to school.  In fact, it’s not about grades, money, clothes, or colleges that accept you.  Life isn’t about if you have lots of friends, or if you are alone, and it’s not about how accepted or unaccepted you are.  Life just isn’t about that.

But life is about who you love and who you hurt.  It’s about how you feel about yourself.  It’s about trust, happiness, and compassion.  It’s about sticking up for your friends and replacing inner hate with love.  Life is about avoiding jealousy, overcoming ignorance, and building confidence.  It’s about what you say and what you mean.  It’s about seeing people for who they are and not what they have.  Most of all, it’s about choosing to use your life to touch someone else’s in a way that could never have been achieved otherwise.  These choices are what life’s about.”   – Nike

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“I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, ‘If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.’”   – Kurt Vonnegut

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