Catalyst Quotes

“Alter Your Beliefs, Change Your Life”

“What we can or cannot do, what we consider possible or impossible, is rarely a function of our true capability. It is more likely a function of our beliefs about who we are.”          (Anthony Robbins)

“We look at some people as if they were special, gifted, divine.  Nobody is special and gifted and divine.  No more than you are, no more than I am.  The only difference, the very only one, is that they have begun to understand what they really are and have begun to practice it.”         (Richard Bach)    

“You don’t have to get a job that makes others feel comfortable about what they perceive as your success.  You don’t have to explain what you plan to do with your life.  You don’t have to justify your education by demonstrating its financial rewards.  You don’t have to maintain an impeccable credit score.  Anyone who expects you to do any of those things has no sense of history or economics or science or the arts.  You have to pay your own electric bill.  You have to be kind.  You have to give it all you got.  You have to find people who love you truly and love them back with the same truth.  But that’s all.”      (Sugar, The Rumpus Advice Column)

“They’re not that different from you, are they?  Same haircuts.  Full of hormones, just like you. Invincible, just like you feel.  The world is their oyster. They believe they’re destined for great things, just like many of you; their eyes are full of hope, just like you.  Did they wait until it was too late to make from their lives even one iota of what they were capable?  Because, you see gentlemen, these boys are now fertilizing daffodils.  But if you listen real close, you can hear them whisper their legacy to you.  Go on, lean in.  Listen, you hear it?  —Carpe  — hear it?  —  Carpe, carpe diem, seize the day boys, make your lives extraordinary.”       (John Keating, ‘Dead Man’s Poet’)

“Try a little harder to be a little better.”        (Gordon B. Hinckley)

“The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitudes.”          (William James)

“Wait or Do It Big”

“I realize that if I wait until I am no longer afraid to act, write, speak, be, I’ll be sending messages on a Ouija board, cryptic complaints from the other side.”      (Audre Lorde)

“You decide you’ll wait for your pitch.  Then as the ball starts toward the plate, you think about your stance.  And then you think about your swing.  And then you realize that the ball that went past you for a strike was your pitch.”       (Bobby Murcer)

“How then, find the courage for action? . . .  By accepting the human condition more simply and candidly, by dreading troubles less, calculating less, hoping more.”       (Henri Frederic Amiel)

“Once I decide to do something, I can’t have people telling me I can’t.  If there’s a roadblock, you jump over it, walk around it, crawl under it.”       (Kitty Kelley)

“Do it big or stay in bed.”       (Larry Kelly)

“Infinite Possibility”

“All my life I had been looking for something, and everywhere I turned someone tried to tell me what it was.  I accepted their answers too, though they were often in contradiction and even self-contradictory.  I was naïve.  I was looking for myself and asking everyone except myself questions which I, and only I, could answer.  It took me a long time and much painful boomeranging of my expectations to achieve a realization, everyone else appears to have born with:  that I am nobody but myself.”       (Ralph Ellison, ‘Battle Royal’)

“Why do we have to spend our lives striving to be something that we would never want to be, if we only knew what we wanted?  Why do we waste our time doing things which, if we only stopped to think about them, are just the opposite of what we were made for?   We cannot be ourselves unless we know ourselves.  But self-knowledge is impossible when thoughtless and automatic activity keeps our souls in confusion.”      (Thomas Merton)

“We are what we think; as we desire so do we become!  By our thoughts, desires, and habits, we either ascend to the full divine dignity of our nature, or we descend to suffer and learn.”      (J. Todd Ferrier)

“The future is simply infinite possibility waiting to happen.  What it waits on is human imagination to crystallize its possibility.”              (Leland Kaiser)

“Too Much Snapping and Not Enough Shining”

“The legendary country singer, Johnny Cash was addicted to drugs in the 1960s and went to jail several times.  Cash says he overcame his addiction by renewing his faith.  He tells how a shoeshine man taught him a lesson for living back in 1956 but, unfortunately, it took several more years for him to really understand the lesson.

‘I was expecting a fast, snappy job like the young folks do,” Cash said, “and he was going about his job real slow.  I said to him, ‘You don’t seem to be doing too much snapping.’

“That shoeshine man looked up at me sort of sideways and said, That’s the problem with the world these days — there’s too much snapping and not enough shining.“             (Lesson for Living, Apple Seeds, May, 1999)

“Most great accomplishments, throughout the course of history, began with one individual’s inspiration, idea or a desire to change a negative situation for the better.

What transforms thought into concrete achievement is the determination, perseverance, and patience of the individual.

The achievement of any goal often involves setbacks and failures, large and small.  But by letting failures educate rather than discourage, you can increase your chances of achieving your objective.  The only real failure occurs when you give up on an attainable goal.”       (Christopher News Notes    

“The question was once asked of a highly successful businessman:

‘How have you done so much in your lifetime?’

He replied, ‘I have dreamed.  I have turned my mind loose to imagine what I wanted to do. Then I have gone to bed and thought about my dreams.  In the night I dreamt about my dreams.  And when I awoke in the morning, I saw the way to make my dreams real.  While other people were saying, You can’t do that, it isn’t possible, I was well on my way to achieving what I wanted.”

As Woodrow Wilson, 28th President of the U.S., said: ‘We grow great by dreams.  All big men are dreamers.  They see things in the soft haze of a spring day or in the red fire on a long winter’s evening.  Some of us let these great dreams die, but others nourish and protect them; nourish them through bad days until they bring them to the sunshine and light which comes always to those who sincerely hope that their dreams will come true.”

So please, don’t let anyone steal your dreams, or try to tell you they are too impossible.  “Sing your song, dream your dreams, hope your hope and pray your prayer.”               (Grow Great By Dreams, Anonymous)

“Everyone knows on any given day that there are energies slumbering in him which the incitements of that day do not call forth ….  Compared with what we ought to be, we are only half awake.  Our fires are damped, our drafts are checked.  We are making use of only a small part of our possible mental and physical resources….  Stating the thing broadly, the human individual thus lives far within his limits; he possesses powers of various sorts he habitually fails to use.”    (William James)

“All know the way, few actually walk it.”       (Bodhidharma)

“Someday We’ll All Be Free”

“My worry is that what you measure yourself with ends up defining you.  You pour yourself into the thing that measures you and it defines you.  And I just hope that one day you find out that you’re fuller when you measure yourself in love and people and moments, instead of things, adoration and money.”      (pleasefindthis)

“Your way is decided.  There is nothing you will not be told, if you acknowledge this.”

“Whenever you are tempted to undertake a useless journey that would lead away from light, remember what you really want …”

“All you need to do is but to wish that Heaven be given you instead of hell, and every bolt and barrier that seems to hold the door securely barred and locked will merely fall away and disappear.”            (Meditations from A Course in Miracles, Helen Schucman and William Thetford, Barnes and Noble)

‘Someday We’ll All Be Free’

“Hang onto the world as it spins around

Just don’t let the spin get you down

Things are moving fast

Hold on tight and you will last

Keep your self-respect . . . the pride

Get yourself in gear, keep your stride

Never mind your fears

Brighter days will soon be here

Take it from me some day; we’ll all be free, yeah

Keep on walking tall, hold your head up high

And lay your dreams right up to the sky

Sing your greatest song

And you’ll keep, going, going on

Take it from me some day; we’ll all be free, yeah

Hey, just wait and see someday we’ll all be free, yeah

Take it from me; someday we’ll all be free

It won’t be long, take it from me someday we’ll all be free

Take it from me, take it from me, take it from me.       (Someday We’ll All Be Free lyrics, composed by Donny Hathaway)

“Become the Light and Share It; Listen to the Sound of Your Heart”

“No mirror ever became iron again;

No bread ever became wheat;

No ripened grape ever became sour fruit.

Mature yourself and be secure from a change for the worse.

Become the light.”           (Rumi)

“For what it’s worth, it’s never too late, or in my case too early, to be whoever you want to be.  There’s no time limit.  Start whenever you want, you can change or stay the same.  There are no rules to this thing.  We can make the best or the worst of it.  I hope you make the best of it.  I hope you see things that startle.  I hope you feel things you never felt before.  I hope you meet people with a different point of view.  I hope you live a life you’re proud of.  If you find that you’re not, I hope you have the strength to start all over again.”      (‘The Curious Case of Benjamin Button’)

“There comes a time in every life when the world gets quiet and the only thing left is your own heart.  So you’d better learn to know the sound of it.  Otherwise you’ll never understand what it’s saying.”      (Just Listen by Sarah Dessen)

“When you are afraid of anything, you are acknowledging its power to hurt you.  Remember that where your heart is, there is treasure also.  You believe in what you value.  If you are afraid, you are valuing wrongly.”       (Meditations from A Course in Miracles by Barnes and Noble)

“Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened.   Happiness never decreases by being shared.”         (Buddha)