Catalyst Quotes

“One Day or Day One. You Decide.”

“The true hero is flawed.  The true test of a champion is not whether he can triumph, but whether he can overcome obstacles – preferably of his own making – in order to triumph.”     (Garth Stein)

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“Wisdom backed by courage makes greatness.  Because they are immortal, they immortalize.  Each person is as great as his or her mind, and to the ones who knows, everything that is possible.  A person without knowledge is a world in darkness. Understanding and will are the eyes and the hands, without courage, the mind is dead.”    (Baltasar Gracián, The Art of Worldly Wisdom)

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“If you want to identify me, ask me not where I live, or what I like to eat, or how I comb my hair, but ask me what I am living for, in detail, ask me what I think is keeping me from living fully for the thing I want to live for.”     (Thomas Merton)

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“’Be yourself, everyone else is taken.’

I don’t agree with Oscar Wilde on this one.
In fact, almost no one else is taken.  You definitely can’t (and shouldn’t) be someone who already exists, but the number of slots left is infinite.
Each of us can work to become the person we seek to be.  A better version of the person we are right now.
Doing work we’re proud of for people we care about.”    (Seth Godin, Seth’s Blog, November 18, 2018)

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“I want to continue being crazy;
Living my life, the way I dream it,
And not the way the other people want it to be.”     (Paulo Coelho)

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“Remember that wherever your heart is, there you will find your treasure.”    (Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist)

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“One day or day one.   You decide.”     (Paulo Coelho)

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“Do It Again”

“Each of us is born brilliant. Then we spend the rest of our lives having our brilliance buried by people, circumstances, and experiences.  Eventually, we forget that we ever had genius and special talents, and our brilliance is locked away in a vault deep within.  So, we settle for who we are, instead of striving for who we were meant to be.”    (Simon T. Bailey)

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“Unless you’re continually improving your skills, you’re quickly becoming irrelevant.”    (Stephen Covey)

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“The wrong bus.   Your first mistake was getting on the A53 bus, the one that goes crosstown instead of to where you’re going.
Mistakes like this happen all the time.
The big mistake, though, the one that will cost you, is staying on that bus.
I know it wasn’t easy to get on the bus.  I know you got a seat.  I know it’s getting dark outside.
But you’re on the wrong bus and staying on the wrong bus won’t make it the right bus.
If you really want to get where you set out to go, you’re going to have to get off the wrong bus.”    (Seth Godin, Seth’s Blog, 8.5.18)

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“Planning is helpful.  If you don’t know what you want, you’ll seldom get it. But, no matter how well you plan, you will fare better if you expect the unexpected.  The unexpected, by nature, comes unseen, unthought, un-envisioned.  All you can do is plan to go unplanned, prepare to be unprepared, make going with the flow part of your agenda, for the most successful among us envision, plan, and prepare, but cast all aside as needed, while those who are unable to go with the flow often suffer, if they survive.”    (David W. Jones, Moses and Mickey Mouse: How to Find Holy Ground in the magic Kingdom and Other Unusual Places)

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“Act the way you’d like to be and soon you’ll be the way you’d like to act.”    (Bob Dylan)

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“Do it again.
Play it again.  Sing it again.  Read it again.  Write it again.  Sketch it again.  Rehearse it again.  Run it again.  Try it again.
Because again is practice, and practice is improvement, and improvement only leads to perfection.”    (Richelle E. Goodrich, Smile Anyway)

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“Today is Your Lucky Day”

“Don’t let other people tell you what you want.”     (Pat Riley)

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“Be a light, not a judge, be a model, not a critic. Be a part of the solution, not the problem.
Little by little, your circle of influence will explode, and you will avoid the emotional metastasizing cancers of complaining, criticizing, competing, comparing and cynicism, all which reflect victimization, all of which are the opposite of being proactive.”     (Stephen Covey)

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“In a space between stimulus (what happens) and how we respond, lies our freedom to choose.  Ultimately, this power to choose is what defines us as human beings.  We may have limited choices, but we can always choose.  We can choose our thoughts, emotions, moods, our words, our actions; we can choose our values and live by principles.  It is the choice of acting or being acted upon.”     (Stephen Covey)

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“Forget mistakes.  Forget failures.  Forget everything except what you’re going to do now and do it.  Today is your lucky day.”     (Will Durant)

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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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“For the next seven days, I challenge you not to complain at all.”     (T. Harv Eker, Secrets of the Millionaire Mind)

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“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”     (Reinhold Niebuhr)

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“You Are the Truth” / “Dare to Dream”

“Change your thoughts and your change the world.”    (Norman Vincent Peale)

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“Mind is the master power that molds and makes
And Man is Mind and evermore he takes
The tool of Thought and, shaping what he wills
Brings forth a thousand joys, a thousand ills.
He thinks in secret, and it comes to pass:
Environment is but his looking glass.”    (James Allen)

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“Our thoughts are the most powerful tools we’ve got.

I think; therefore, I can create awesomeness.  Or horrendousness.  But the bottom line is that it’s through our thoughts that we create our realities.”    (Jen Sincero, You are a Badass, How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life)

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“We must dare to dream great dreams – and then we must dare to put them into action.”    (Peter MacDonald)

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“Listening to your heart, finding out who you are, is not simple.  It takes time for the chatter to quiet down.  In the silence of ‘not doing’ we begin to know what we feel.  If we listen and hear what is being offered, then anything in life can be our guide.   Listen.”    (Unknown Author)

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“There are people who put their dreams in a little box and say, ‘Yes, I’ve got dreams, of course I’ve got dreams.’  Then they put the box away and bring it out once in awhile to look in it, and yep, they’re still there.  These are great dreams, but they never even get out of the box.  It takes an uncommon amount of guts to put your dreams on the line, to hold them up and say, ‘How good or how bad am I?’ That’s where courage comes in.”    (Erma Bombeck)

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“What a wonderful life I’ve had!
I only wish I’d realized it sooner.”    (Colette)

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“You are the truth from foot to brow.
Now what else would you like to know?”    (Rumi)

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“Today is Filled With Anger / Make Every Tomorrow a Vision of Hope

“I resent violence or intolerance in any shape or form.  It never reaches anything or stops anything.  A revolution must come on the due installments plans.  It’s a patent absurdity on the face of it to hate people because they live round the corner and speak a different vernacular, so to speak.”     (James Joyce, Ulysses)

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“If you start by hating one or two people, you won’t be able to stop.  Pretty soon you’ll hate a hundred people.”
“A zillion?”
“Even a zillion.  A little hatred goes a long, long way.  It grows and grows.  And it’s hungry.”
“Like Cimmamum?”
“Even hungrier.  You keep feeding it more and more people, and the more it gets, the more it wants.  It’s never satisfied.  And pretty soon it squeezes all the love out of your heart” — I pointed to her heart; she looked down at her chest — “and all you’ll have left is a hateful heart.”     (Jerry Spinelli, Love, Stargirl)

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“Today is filled with anger, fueled with hidden hate.
Scared of being outkast, afraid of common fate.
Today is built on tragedies which no one wants to face.
Nightmares to humanity and morally disgraced.
Tonight, is filled with Rage, violence in the air.
Children bred with ruthlessness cause no one at home cares.
Tonight, I lay my head down but the pressure never stops,
knowing that my sanity content when I’m dropped.
But tomorrow I see change, a chance to build a new,
build on spirit intent of heart and ideas based on truth.
Tomorrow I wake with second wind and strong because of pride.
I know I fought with all my heart to keep the dream alive.”     (Tupac Shakur)

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“One theory says that if you treat people well, you’re more likely to encourage them to do what you want, making all the effort pay off.  Do this, get that.
Another one, which I prefer, is that you might consider treating people with kindness merely because you can.  Regardless of what they choose to do in response, this is what you choose to do.  Because you can.”     (Seth Godin, Seth’s Blog, June 2, 2014)

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“Be patient with everyone, but above all with yourself.  I mean, do not be disheartened by your imperfections, but always rise up with fresh courage.  How are we to be patient in dealing with our neighbor’s faults if we are impatient in dealing with our own?  He who is fretted by his own failings will not correct them. All profitable correction comes from a calm, peaceful mind.”     (St. Francis de Sales)

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“Yesterday is but a dream, tomorrow is but a vision.
But today well lived makes every yesterday a dream of happiness, and every tomorrow a vision of hope.
Look well, therefore, to this day.”     (Sanskrit proverb)

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