Catalyst Quotes

Compiled by Alex Pena ~ ‘Catalyst’: “to spark, to ignite, energize, mobilize; something that accelerates a reaction (DDI)." Thought-provoking & motivational quotes and stories for you to read, reflect on and move forward in making creative and positive changes in your life.

Archive for the category “Courage”

“You Are Valuable, Equipped, Anointed, and Approved!”

 

“There are plenty of others willing to call you a failure.  A fool.  A loser.  A hopeless souse!  Don’t you ever say it of yourself.  You send out the wrong signal.  That is what people pick up.  Do you understand?  If you care about something fight for it.  You hit a wall, push through it.  There’s something you need to know about failure, Tintin:  You can never let it defeat you.”   (Captain Haddock, The Adventures of Tintin)

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“It doesn’t make any difference whether what you face is something that affects your work, your personal relationships, your sense of security, your appraisal of self-worth, or your appearance — the way you think about your situation largely determines whether you will do anything about it and what you will do.”   (Dr. Arthur Freeman and Rose DeWolf)

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“A small trouble is like a pebble.  Hold it too close to your eye and it fills the whole world and puts everything out of focus.  Hold it at a proper distance and it can be examined and properly classified.  Throw it at your feet and it can be seen in its true setting, just one more tiny bump on the pathway of life.”   (Celia Luce)

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“The trouble with many plans is that they are based on the way things are now. To be successful, your personal plan must focus on what you want, not what you have.”   (Nido Qubein)

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“‘What is the world’s greatest lie?’ the little boy asks.

The old man replies, ‘It’s this:  that at a certain point in our lives, we lose control of what’s happening to us, and our lives become controlled by fate.  That’s the world’s greatest lie.’”  (Paulo Coelho)

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“If you keep focusing on your flaws, listening to what other people are saying, you can miss your destiny.  Instead, remind yourself that you are valuable, you are equipped, you are anointed, you are approved!”   (Joel Osteen)

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“Man is a Marvelously Picturesque Piece of Diversity”

 

“It is never too late to give up your prejudices.”   (Henry David Thoreau)

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“In this country we have no place for hyphenated Americans.”  (Theodore Roosevelt)

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“At bottom every man knows well enough that he is a unique being, only once on this earth; and by no extraordinary chance will such a marvelously picturesque piece of diversity in unity as he is, ever be put together a second time.”    (Friedrich Nietzsche)

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“Few will have the greatness to bend history itself, but each of us can work to change a small portion of events.  It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped.  Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.”   (Robert F. Kennedy)

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“There are not more than five musical notes, yet the combinations of these five give rise to more melodies than can ever be heard.

There are not more than five primary colors, yet in combination they produce more hues than can ever been seen.

There are not more than five cardinal tastes, yet combinations of them yield more flavors than can ever be tasted.”   (Sun Tzu, The Art of War)

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“You Are a Rainbow With Gold at Both Ends”

 

“We spend our lives asking the question, ‘What do people want me to do?  Who do they want me to be?’  But this is a betrayal of our inner truth.  We should be investing our lives in the pursuit of discovering who we are and what we were created to do.”   (Elizabeth Grace Saunders)

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“A bad day for your ego is a great day for your soul.”   (Jillian Michaels)

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“Learn to be brave and adventurous because you’ll never discover your place in the world, if you’re too afraid to leave your own backyard.”   (Nina Guilbeau)

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“Unless we take that first step into the unknown, we will never know our own potential!”   (Allan Rufus)

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“Life is an opportunity, benefit from it.  Life is a beauty, admire it.  Life is a dream, realize it. Life is a challenge, meet it.  Life is a duty, complete it.  Life is a game, play it.  Life is a promise, fulfill it.  Life is sorrow, overcome it.  Life is a song, sing it.  Life is a struggle, accept it.  Life is a tragedy, confront it.  Life is an adventure, dare it.  Life is luck, make it.  Life is life, fight for it!”  (Mother Teresa)

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“Dare to love yourself

as if you were a rainbow

with gold at both ends.”   (Aberjhani, The River of Winged Dreams)

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“Don’t Change the World, Change Yourself”

 

“Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.”    (Aristotle)

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“In the beginning, it is difficult and even painful to see the faults in yourself, the flaws in your soul, the error of your ways.  But I have come to love the moments when I see my flaws and I spot my errors!  It is one of the most beautiful things, really!  Because it is when we see our own flaws and our own errors that we can find the opposite of those things!  It is when we see our own flaws and our own errors that we can see that there is so much more room to become better!  And so I have come to actually rejoice when I find something wrong with me! And I know when it’s really wrong because I can see it and I can feel it in my heart both at the same time — it is a revelation. It’s not something that comes from any external source; but it is my own spirit and the voice of God revealing these things to me, unfolding them, rolling them out of a silken cloth at my feet. And I smile.”   (C. JoyBell C.)

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“Note and Quote to Self – What you think, say and do!

Your life mainly consists of 3 things!

  • What you think,
  • What you say and
  • What you do!

So always be very conscious of what you are co-creating!”   (Allan Rufus, The Master’s Sacred Knowledge)

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“There are essentially two questions in life – a spiritual question and a material question.  The spiritual question is ‘Who am I?’  The material question is ‘What am I to do with my life?’  One leads to the other.”   (Rasheed Ogunlaru)

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“You don’t need to change the world; you need to change yourself.”    (Miguel Ruiz)

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“It’s Always Your Choice”

 

“I don’t want to get to the end of my life and find that I lived just the length of it.  I want to have lived the width of it as well.”   (Diane Ackerman)

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“Everything you’ve ever wanted is on the other side of fear.”   (George Addair)

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“Real difficulties can be overcome; it is only the imaginary ones that are unconquerable.”   (Theodore N. Vail)

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“The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person who is doing it.”   (Chinese Proverb)

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“I believe it is better to live a dream rather than to simply dream it.  The dream is the start of something greater, something that impels us to make daring decisions.  And it’s true that the person who pursues a dream takes many risks.  But the person who does not runs risks that are even greater.”   (Paulo Coelho)

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“Be miserable.  Or motivate yourself.  Whatever has to be done, it’s always your choice.”   (Wayne Dyer)

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“The Soul Unfolds Itself”

 

“A man said to the universe:  ‘Sir, I exist!’

‘However,’ replied the universe.

‘The fact has not created in me a sense of obligation.’”   (Stephen Crane, War is Kind and Other Poems)

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“So many people walk around with a meaningless life.  They seem half-asleep, even when they’re busy doing things they think are important.  This is because they’re chasing the wrong things.  The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning.”   (Mitch Albom, Tuesdays with Morrie:  An Old Man, a Young Man, and Life’s Greatest Lesson)

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“At various points in our lives, or on a quest, and for reasons that often remain obscure, we are driven to make decisions which prove with hindsight to be loaded with meaning.”   (Swami Satchidananda, The Young Sutras)

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“Say not, ‘I have found the truth,’ but rather, ‘I have found a truth.’  Say not, ‘I have found the path of the soul.’  Say rather, ‘I have met the soul walking upon my path.’  For the soul walks upon all paths.  The soul walks not upon a line, neither does it grow like a reed.  The soul unfolds itself, like a lotus of countless petals.”   (Kahlil Gibran)

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“Sometimes, the most profound of awakenings come wrapped in the quietest of moments.”  (Stephen Crane)

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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, The Sirens of Titan)

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“Most of us have far more courage than we ever dreamed we possessed.”   (Dale Carnegie)

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“The Sum Total of Everything That Went Before Me”

 

“We do not create our destiny; we participate in its unfolding.  Synchronicity works as a catalyst toward the working out of that destiny.”   (David Richo, The Power of Coincidence)

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“I don’t want to be little again.  But at the same time I do. I want to be me like I was then, and me as I am now, and me like I’ll be in the future.  I want to be me and nothing but me.  I want to be crazy as the moon, wild as the wind and still as the earth.  I want to be every single thing it’s possible to be.  I’m growing and I don’t know how to grow.  I’m living but I haven’t started living yet.  Sometimes I simply disappear from myself.  Sometimes it’s like I’m not here in the world at all and I simply don’t exist.  Sometimes I can hardly think.  My head just drifts and the visions that come seem so vivid.”    (David Almond, Jackdaw Summer)

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“You are afraid to die, and you’re afraid to live.  What a way to exist.”   (Neale Donald Walsch, Home With God, In a Life That Never Ends)

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“Before you write, think.

Before you spend, earn.

Before you invest, investigate.

Before you criticize, wait.

Before you pray, forgive.

Before you quit, try.

Before you retire, save.

Before you die, give.”   (William Arthur Ward)

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“I am the sum total of everything that went before me, of all I have been seen done, of everything done-to-me.  I am everyone everything whose being-in-the-world affected was affected by mine.  I am anything that happens after I’m gone which would not have happened if I had not come.”   (Salman Rushdie, Midnight’s Children)

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“Your Creators and Experiences Have Made You” – Find Purpose

 

“In the beginning, God created the earth, and he looked upon it in his cosmic loneliness.

And God said, ‘Let Us make living creatures out of mud, so the mud can see what We have done.’

And God created every living creature that now moveth, and one was man.  Mud as man alone could speak.  God leaned close to mud as man sat, looked around, and spoke.  ‘What is the purpose of all this?’ he asked politely.

‘Everything must have a purpose?’ asked God.

‘Certainly,’ said man.

‘Then I leave it to you to think of one for all this,’ said God.

And He went away.”   (Kurt Vonnegut, Cat’s Cradle)

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“Life is difficult.”   (M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled)

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“Perhaps the most terrible (or wonderful) thing that can happen to an imaginative youth, aside from the curse (or blessing) of imagination itself, is to be exposed without preparation to the life outside his or her own sphere – the sudden revelation that there is a there out there.”   (Tom Robbins, Jitterbug Perfume)

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“I cannot believe that the purpose of life is to be happy.  I think the purpose of life is to be useful, to be responsible, to be compassionate.  It is, above all to matter, to count, to stand for something, to have made some difference that you lived at all.”   (Leo Rosten)

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“Coincidences give you opportunities to look more deeply into your existence.”   (Doug Dillon)

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“I think it’s much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong.  I have approximate answers and possible beliefs and different degrees of uncertainty about different things, but I am not absolutely sure of anything and there are many things I don’t know anything about, such as whether it means anything to ask why we’re here.  I don’t have to know an answer.  I don’t feel frightened not knowing things, by being lost in a mysterious universe without any purpose, which is the way it really is as far as I can tell.”  (Richard P. Feynman)

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“You are what your creators and experiences have made you, like every other being in this universe.  Accept that and be done; I tire of your whining.”   (N. K. Jemisin, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms)

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“Deliver More Than You Promise”

“The best way to get unstuck:

Don’t wait for the right answer and the golden path to present themselves.

This is precisely why you’re stuck.  Starting without seeing the end is difficult, so we often wait until we see the end, scanning relentlessly for the right way, the best way and the perfect way.

The way to get unstuck is to start down the wrong path, right now.

Step by step, page by page, interaction by interaction.  As you start moving, you can’t help but improve, can’t help but incrementally find yourself getting back toward your north star.

You might not end up with perfect, but it’s significantly more valuable than being stuck.

Don’t just start.  Continue.  Ship.  Repeat.”     (Seth Godin, Seth’s Blog)

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“The only limits to the possibilities in your life tomorrow are the ‘buts’ you use today.”   (Les Brown)

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“Everyone has inside of him a piece of good news.  The good news is that you don’t know how great you can be!  How much you can love!  What you can accomplish!  And what your potential is!”   (Anne Frank)

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“Here’s a little workshop to rock the new year and manifest whatever your heart desires:

1)       Ask once.

2)      Give thanks often.

End of little workshop.  Thanks again.   (signed) The Universe.”   (Mike Dooley, Notes from the Universe, January 7, 2014)

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“Do what you love, love what you do, and deliver more than you promise.   (Harvey Mackay)

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“It Is Not What One Does; It’s What one Becomes”

 

“We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.”    (Plato)

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“There are two ways of spreading light:  to be the candle or the mirror that receives it.”   (Edith Wharton)

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“Everybody wants to be somebody; nobody wants to grow.”   (Goethe)

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“It’s a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it.”   (W. Somerset Maugham)

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“The turning point in the process of growing up is when you discover the core of strength within you that survives all hurt.”   (Max Lerner)

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“How many slams in an old screen door?  Depends how loud you shut it.  How many slices in a bread?  Depends how thin you cut it.  How much good inside a day?  Depends how good you live ‘em.  How much love inside a friend? Depends how much you give ‘em.”   (Shel Silverstein)

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“I have learned this:  it is not what one does that is wrong, but what one becomes as a consequence of it.”   (Oscar Wilde)

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