Catalyst Quotes

“Control Your Own Destiny”

“Would you like you if you met you?”    (Tegan and Sara)

“Oh, what we might accomplish, were it not for an exaggerated sense of our own unimportance.”    (Robert Brault, Round Up the Usual Subjects, Thoughts on Just About Everything)

“Braveness is not the absence of fear
But rather the strength to keep on going forward despite the fear.”    (Paulo Coelho)

“To know what is right and not do it is the worst cowardice.”    (Confucius)

“You never know what worse luck your bad luck has saved you from.”    (Cormac McCarthy)

“Why abandon a belief merely because it eases to be true.
Cling to it long enough, and not a doubt it will turn true again, for so it goes.
Most of the change we think we see in life is due to truths being in and out of favor.”    (Robert Frost)

“Forget self-esteem.  You need self-compassion.

Self-esteem has long been considered the bedrock of individual success.  But high self-esteem many not be all that it’s cracked up to be.  Thinking you’re great (which of course you are) comes with pressure to live up to your self-image.  You may live in quiet terror of making mistakes, and even worse, feel devastated when you do. When faced with a challenge, you don’t need to believe in your own brilliance as much as you need to confront your flaws head on.  Develop self-compassion, a willingness to look at your own shortcomings with kindness and understanding. With a realistic sense of your abilities and actions, you can figure out what needs to be done differently next time.  Being perfect doesn’t lead to success, but being able to avoid the same mistake does.”    (“To Succeed, Forget Self-Esteem” by Heidi Grant Halvorson, Harvard Business Management Blog, 1.12.13)

“Control your own destiny or someone else will.”    (Jack Welch)

“You’re braver than you believe, and stronger that you seem, and smarter than you think.”    (A. A. Milne)

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“Be and Do Good in Your Life”

“Don’t be afraid of your fears.  They’re not there to scare you.  They’re there to let you know that something is worth it.”    (C. JoyBell C.)

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“It is said that you only get one life.  Truth is, you only get one birth and one death.  How many lives you squeeze in is up to you.”    (Robert Brault, Reflections)

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“Do your little bit of good where you are; it’s those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.”    (Desmond Tutu)

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“When I was young, my ambition was to be one of the people who made a difference in this world.  My hope is to leave the world a little better for having been there.”   (Jim Henson)

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“Life becomes easier and more beautiful when we can see the good in other people.”    (Roy T. Bennett)

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“You have to believe.   Otherwise, it will never happen.”     (Neil Gaiman, Stardust)

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“To believe in something, and not to live it, is dishonest.”    (Mahatma Gandhi)

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“When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won.  There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall.   Think of it – always.”    (Mahatma Gandhi)

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“Don’t be pushed around by the fears in your mind.  Be led by the dreams in your heart.”   (Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart)

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“Don’t go on discussing what a good person should be.  Just be one.”   (Marcus Aurelius, Meditations)

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“Your Mind – What You Think You Become”

“You think about 60,000 thoughts a day.  It’s up to you to make sure that you don’t use up 59,999 of them with negative, cynical thinking.

So next time, before you start to think something negative, just think about that … and this:  Your brain has 1000 billion cells – and each of these little babies is connected to at least 20,000 other cells.  The variety of potential combinations of all these is more multitudinous than the number of molecules existing in the entire universe!  So, if you have that many different combinations of brain cells to choose from, why not try a new combo today?    (Karen Salmansohn, how to be HAPPY, dammit, a cynic’s guide to spiritual happiness)

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“The mind is everything.   What you think, you become.”    (Gautama Buddha)

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“Between stimulus and response there is space.
In that space is our power to choose our response.
In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”    (Viktor Frankl)

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“Your mind will believe comforting lies while also knowing the painful truths that make those lies necessary.  And your mind will punish you for believing both.” (Patrick Ness, A Monster Calls)

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“I’ve experienced many terrible things in my life, a few of which actually happened.”    (Unknown Author)

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“People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character.”    (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

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“We aren’t who we want to be.  We are what society demands.  We are what our parents choose.  We don’t want to disappoint anyone.   So, we smother the best in us.”    (Paulo Coelho)

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“The best years of your life are the ones in which you decide your problems are your own.  You do not blame them on your mother, the ecology, or the president.  You realize that you control your destiny.”    (Albert Einstein)

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“He who knows others is learned.   He who knows himself is wise.”    (Lao Tzu)

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“Our Secret Life”

“You must give everything to make your life as beautiful as the dreams that dance in your imagination.”    (Roman Payne)

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“Other people will edit you your whole life.   They’ll take what you say and keep the bits they like and throw away the rest.   Don’t edit yourself.”    (I Wrote This for You)

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“Soar above the worries of daily life and explore the other possibilities that abound.  Knock and new doors will open.  Find, and quench your thirst for seeking.”    (Vikram Joshi, The Alchemy of The Soul)

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“Our secret life is where we are able to tap into the power of the four human endowments:  self-awareness, conscience, imagination, and independent will.  It is the part of you where you decide the most fundamental issues of your life.  As the psalmist put it: ‘Search your own heart with all diligence, for out of it flows the issues of your life.’   It truly is a secret life.   No one knows the thoughts and intents of your heart.   You alone have that awareness, and you can step in on your own deep inner life; you can examine, explore, and change it.   Many people, unless they are in pain because of something they care about that is not being fulfilled, will not go into their deep inner life at all.   In a sense, they’re not living. They’re just being lived, publicly and privately.”    (Stephen R. Covey, How to Develop Your Personal Mission Statement)

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“Order is not enough.  You can’t just be stable, and secure, and unchanging, because there are still vital and important new things to be learned.  Nonetheless, chaos can be too much.  You can’t long tolerate being swamped and overwhelmed beyond your capacity to cope while you are learning what you still need to know.  Thus, you need to place one foot in what you have mastered and understood and the other in what you are currently exploring and mastering.  Then you have positioned yourself where the terror of existence is under control and you are secure, but where you are also alert and engaged.  That is where there is something new to master and some way that you can be improved.  That is where meaning is to be found.”    (Jordan B. Peterson, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos)

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“If you live the same day, week, or year that you have always lived, your life will never get any better.  Let yourself actually live.  Fix what is broken in your life. Explore what you have left unexplored.  Find the discomfort of the new and embrace it.  Enjoy all that life has to offer.”    (Avina Celeste)

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“At first people refuse to believe that a strange new thing can be done, then they begin to hope it can be done, then they see it can be done – then it is done and all the world wonders why it was not done centuries ago.”    (Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden)

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“Life is short.  The world is big.  It awaits your exploration.  If you’re not living on the edge, you’re just taking up way too much space.”    (Paul Beaver, Diary of an Amazon Jungle Guide: Amazing Encounters with Tropical Nature and Culture)

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“You might as well answer the door, my child . . . the truth is furiously knocking.”    (Lucille Clifton, Good Woman: Poems and a Memoir 1969-1980)

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“You Are Here Meaningfully / Have a Big Story”

“I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.”     (Mary Oliver, New and Selected Poems)

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“There are things known
and there are things unknown
and in between are the doors.”     (Jim Morrison, Letters from Joe)

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“If you do follow your bliss you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living.  Follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be.”     (Joseph Campbell)

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“Each person comes into this world with a specific destiny — he has something to fulfill, some message has to be delivered, some work has to be completed.  You are not here accidentally — you are here meaningfully.  There is a purpose behind you.  The whole intends to do something through you.”     (Osho)

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“People are capable, at any time in their lives, of doing what they dream of.”     (Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist)

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“You can, you should, and if you’re brave enough to start, you will.”     (Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft)

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“I believe life is constantly testing us for our level of commitment, and life’s greatest rewards are reserved for those who demonstrate a never-ending commitment to act until they achieve.
This level of resolve can move mountains, but it must be constant and consistent.  As simplistic as this may sound, it is still the common denominator separating those who live their dreams from those who live in regret.”     (Anthony Robbins)

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What, exactly, should you do now?
You can choose to lead, or not.
You can choose to have faith, or not.
Are there thousands of reasons why you,
of all people, aren’t the right one to lead?
Why you don’t have the resources or the authority
or the genes or the momentum to lead?
Probably.  So what?
You still get to make the choice.
But once you choose to lead, you’ll discover that it’s not so difficult.”     (Seth Godin, Tribes – We Need YOU to Lead Us)

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“You just do it.  You force yourself to get up.  You force yourself to put one foot before the other, and God damn it, you just refuse to let it get to you.  You fight.  You cry.  You curse.  Then you go about the business of living.  That’s how I’ve done it.  There’s no other way.”     (Elizabeth Taylor)

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“If you’re going to have a story, have a big story.”    (Joseph Campbell, The Storyteller’s Secret)

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