Catalyst Quotes

“My Mission, Should I Choose to Accept It, Is …”

“Ralph Waldo Emerson once asked what we would do if the stars only came out once every thousand years.  No one would sleep that night, of course.  The world would create new religions overnight.  We would be ecstatic, delirious, made rapturous by the glory of God. Instead, the stars come out every night and we watch television.”   (Paul Hawkens)

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“My mission, should I choose to accept it, is to find peace with exactly who and what I am.  To take pride in my thoughts, my appearance, my talents, my flaws and to stop this incessant worrying that I can’t be loved as I am.”   (Anais Nin)

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“Most of the pain you’re dealing with are really just thoughts … ever think of that?”   (Buddhist Bookcamp)

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“That’s the thing about ‘what ifs’; they don’t matter.  They don’t change anything.  All they do is make it unable for you to heal.”   (Lindy Zart)

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“If you don’t get what you want, you suffer; if you get what you don’t want, you suffer; even when you get exactly what you want, you still suffer because you can’t hold on to it forever.”   (Dan Millman, Way of the Peaceful Warrior)

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“Eat like you love yourself.

Move like you love yourself.

Speak like you love yourself.

Act like you love yourself.”   (thehealthblr)

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“And that is how change happens.  One gesture.  One person.  One moment at a time.”   (Libba Bray, The Sweet Far Thing)

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“Once the Soul Awakens, The Search Begins / All About Potential”

“When you’re a little kid, you’re a little bit of everything:  Artist, Scientist, Athlete, Scholar. Sometimes it seems like growing up is a process of giving those things up, one by one.  I guess we all have one thing we regret giving up; one thing we really miss – that we gave up because we were too lazy, or because we couldn’t stick it out, or because we were afraid.”   (The Wonder Years)

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“Once the soul awakens, the search begins and you can never go back.  From then on, you are inflamed with a special longing that will never again let you linger in the lowlands of complacency and partial fulfillment.  The eternal makes you urgent.  You are loath to let compromise or the threat of danger hold you back from striving toward the summit of fulfillment.”    (John O’Donohue, Anam Cara:  A Book of Celtic Wisdom)

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“If something was really important, fate made sure it somehow came back to you and gave you another chance.  Events conspired to bring you back to where you’d been.  It was what you did then that made all the difference: it was all about potential.”   (Sarah Dessen)

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“The potential of the average person is like a huge ocean un-sailed, a new continent unexplored, a world of possibilities waiting to be released and channeled toward some great good.”    (Brian Tracy)

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“I’m no more a wonder than anyone.  And that’s what makes the world magical.  Every baby’s a seed of wonder – that gets watered or it doesn’t.”   (Dean Koontz, Relentless)

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“One of the most amazing things that can happen is finding someone who sees everything you are and won’t let you be anything less.  They see the potential of you.  They see endless possibilities.  And through their eyes, you start to see yourself the same way. As someone who matters.  As someone who can make a difference in this world.

If you’re lucky enough to find this person, never let them go.”   (Susane Colasanti, So Much Closer)

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“Biggest Mistake to Make / Doubt Our Potential and Our Possibilities”

“If you listen to your fears, you will die never knowing what a great person you might have been.”   (Robert Schuller)

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“The biggest mistake of the man is that he thinks he doesn’t deserve the good and the bad things from his life.”   (Paulo Coelho)

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“Can you imagine what I would do if I could do all I can?”   (Sun Tzu)

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“Always dream and shoot higher than you know you can do.  Do not bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors.  Try to be better than yourself.”   (William Faulkner

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“When I was little and running on the race track at school, I always stopped and waited for all the other kids so we could run together even though I knew (and everybody else knew) that I could run much faster than all of them!  I pretended to read slowly so I could “wait” for everyone else who couldn’t read as fast as I could!  When my friends were short I pretended that I was short too and if my friend was sad I pretended to be unhappy.  I could go on and on about all the ways I have limited myself, my whole life, by “waiting” for people.  And the only thing that I’ve ever received in return is people thinking that they are faster than me, people thinking that they can make me feel bad about myself just because I let them and people thinking that I have to do whatever they say I should do.  My mother used to teach me ‘Cinderella is a perfect example to be’ but I have learned that Cinderella can go f*** herself, I’m not waiting for anybody, anymore!  I’m going to run as fast as I can, fly as high as I can, I am going to soar and if you want you can come with me!  But I’m not waiting for you anymore.”  (C. JoyBell. C.)

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“It is a denial of the divinity within us to doubt our potential and our possibilities.”   (James E. Faust)

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“Life Has No Victims / Create a World of Real Magic”

“Who are you to judge the life I live?

I know I’m not perfect – and I don’t live to be.

But before you start pointing fingers … make sure your hands are clean!”   (Bob Marley)

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“You’re going to come across people in your life who will say all the right words at all the right times.  But in the end, it’s always their actions you should judge them by.  It’s actions, not words, that matter.”   (Nicholas Sparks, The Rescue)  

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“Sometimes fate is like a small sandstorm that keeps changing directions.  You change direction but the sandstorm chases you.  You turn again, but the storm adjusts.  Over and over you play this out, like some ominous dance with death just before dawn.  Why?  Because this storm isn’t something that blew in from far away, something that has nothing to do with you.  This storm is you.  Something inside of you.  So all you can do is give in to it, step right inside the storm, closing your eyes and plugging up your ears so the sand doesn’t get in, and walk through it, step by step.  There’s no sun there, no moon, no direction, no sense of time. Just fine white sand swirling up into the sky like pulverized bones.  That’s the kind of sandstorm you need to imagine.

And you really will have to make it through that violent, metaphysical, symbolic storm.  No matter how metaphysical or symbolic it might be, make no mistake about it: it will cut through flesh like a thousand razor blades.  People will bleed there, and you will bleed too.  Hot, red blood.  You’ll catch that blood in your hands, your own blood and the blood of others.

And once the storm is over you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive.  You won’t even be sure, in fact, whether the storm is really over.  But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm you won’t be the same person who walked in.  That’s what this storm’s all about.”   (Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore)

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“Life has no victims.  There are no victims in this life.

No one has the right to point fingers at his/her past and blame it for what he/she is today.  We do not have the right to point our finger at someone else and blame that person for how we treat others, today.

Don’t hide in the corner, pointing fingers at your past.  Don’t sit under the table, talking about someone who has hurt you.  Instead, stand up and face your past!  Face your fears!  Face your pain!

And stomach it all!  You may have to do so kicking and screaming and throwing fits and crying- but by all means – face it!

This life makes no room for cowards.”   (C. JoyBell C.)

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“She had just realized there were two things that prevent us from achieving our dreams: believing them to be impossible or seeing those dreams made possible by some sudden turn of the wheel of fortune, when you least expected it.  For at that moment, all our fears suddenly surface:  the fear of setting off along a road heading who knows where, the fear of a life full of new challenges, the fear of losing forever everything that is familiar.”   (Paulo Coelho, The Devil and Miss Prym)

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“Be like the sun for grace and mercy.  Be like the night to cover others’ faults. Be like running water for generosity.  Be like death for rage and anger.  Be like the Earth for modesty.  Appear as you are.  Be as you appear.”   (Rumi)

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“We can choose to function at a lower level of awareness and simply exist, caring for our possessions, eating, drinking, sleeping and managing in the world as pawns of the elements, or we can soar to new and higher levels of awareness allowing ourselves to transcend our environment and literally create a world of our own — a world of real magic.”   (Dr. Wayne Dyer)

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“Imagine / Thank the Lord for Letting You Have the Ride”

“I need, therefore I imagine.”    (Carlos Fuentes)

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“Imagination does not become great until human beings, given the courage and the strength, use it to create.”   (Maria Montessori)

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“Imagine smiling after a slap in the face.  Then think of doing it twenty-four hours a day.”  (Markus Zusak, The Book Thief)

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“In a world where billions believe their deity conceived a mortal child with a virgin human, it’s stunning how little imagination most people display.”   (Chuck Palahniuk)

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“I was blind and heart-broken and didn’t want to do anything and Gus burst into my room and shouted, ‘I have wonderful news!’  

And I was like, ‘I don’t really want to hear wonderful news right now,’ and Gus said, ‘This is wonderful news you want to hear,’ and I asked him, ‘Fine, what is it?’ and he said, ‘You are going to live a good and long life filled with great and terrible moments that you cannot even imagine yet!’”    (John Green, The Fault in Our Stars)

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“Anyone who imagines that bliss is normal is going to waste a lot of time running around shouting that he has been robbed.  The fact is that most putts don’t drop, most beef is tough, most children grow up to be just like people, most successful marriages require a high degree of mutual toleration, and most jobs are more often dull than otherwise.  Life is just like an old time rail journey … delays, sidetracks, smoke, dust, cinders, and jolts, interspersed only occasionally by beautiful vistas and thrilling bursts of speed.  The trick is to thank the Lord for letting you have the ride.”    (Jenkin Lloyd Jones)

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“Wisdom and Love; Between the Two My Life Flows”

“I divide by fears by multiplying the risks;

Adding bridges by subtracting walls.”   (Unknown Author)

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“Those who are able to see beyond their culture will never be understood, let alone believed, by the masses.”   (Plato)

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“Anyone can give up, it’s the easiest thing in the world to do.  But to hold it together when everyone else would understand if you fell apart, that’s true strength.”   (Anonymous)

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“The winners in life think constantly in terms of I can, I will, and I am.  Losers, on the other hand, concentrate their waking thoughts on what they should have or would have done, or what they can’t do.”   (Dennis Waitley)

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“Oftentimes we call Life bitter names, but only when we ourselves are bitter and dark.  And we deem her empty and unprofitable, but only when the soul goes wandering in desolate places and the heart is drunken with over-mindfulness of self.

Life is deep and high and distant; and though only your vast vision can reach even her feet, yet she is near; and though only the breath of your breath reaches her heart, the shadow of your shadow crosses her face, and the echo of your faintest cry becomes a spring and an autumn in her breast.

And Life is veiled and hidden, even as your greater self is hidden and veiled.  Yet when Life speaks, all the winds become words; and when she speaks again, the smiles upon your lips and the tears in your eyes turn also into words.  When she sings, the deaf hear and are held; and when she comes walking, the sightless behold her and are amazed and follow her in wonder and astonishment.”  (Kahlil Gibran)

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“Wisdom tells me I am nothing.

Love tells me I am everything.

Between the two my life flows.”    (Nisargadatta Maharaj)

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“Your Attitude – Control Center of Your Life”

“We are all manufacturers – some make good, others make trouble, and still others make excuses.”   (Anonymous)

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“The sages do not consider that making no mistakes is a blessing.  They believe, rather, that the great virtue of man lies in his ability to correct his mistakes and continually make a new man of himself.”   (Wang Yang-Ming)

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“I even have a superstition that has grown on me as the result of invisible hands coming all the time—namely that if you do follow your bliss, you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you.”   (Joseph Campbell)

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“Man’s ideal state is realized when he has fulfilled the purpose for which he is born.  And what is it that reason demands of him?  Something very easy – that he live in accordance with his own nature.”   (Seneca)        

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“The purpose of life is to discover your gift.  The meaning of life is giving your gift away.”   (David Viscott)       

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“The control center of your life is your attitude.”   (Norman Cousins)

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“Express the Truth of Your Character”

“The hardest battle you will ever have to fight is between who you are now and who you want to be.”   (Anonymous)

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“There is no need to reach high for the stars.  They are already within you.  Just reach deep into yourself!”   (Unknown Author)

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“Whatever you think, be sure it is what you think; whatever you want, be sure that is what you want; whatever you feel, be sure that is what you feel.”   (T. S. Eliot)

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“The secret is here in the present.  If you pay attention to the present, you can improve upon it.  And, if you improve on the present, what comes later will also be better.  Forget about the future and live each day.  Each day, in itself, brings with it an eternity.”   (Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist)

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“You express the truth of your character with the choice of your actions.”   (Steve Maraboli)

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“The greatest learning of the ages lies in accepting life exactly as it comes to us.”   (Anthony de Mello, The Prayer of the Frog, Vol. 1)

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“Time to Go to a New Movie / Don’t Ask the World to Change”

“Got this one from a Tony Robbins seminar (I think it was ‘Date with Destiny’):

You have any movies you just absolutely hated?  Yah?  Me, too.

Quick question:  Would you go watch it 10,000 times?

Um.  Riiiight.

That’d be pretty stupid, eh?

So, another quick question:  Why do we replay that horrible scene from our lives over and over and over and over and over and over again?

Time to go to a new movie, wouldn’t you say?”   (Brian Johnson, Chief Philosopher and CEO of en*theos)

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“Begin challenging your own assumptions. Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in awhile, or the light won’t come in.”   (Alan Alda)

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“I know who I WAS when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then.”   (Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass)

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“You think of yourself as a citizen of the universe.

You think you belong to this world of dust and matter.

Out of this dust you have created a personal image, and have forgotten about the essence of your true origin”   (Rumi, Hush, Don’t Say Anything to God:  Passionate Poems of Rumi)

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“You do not need to know precisely what is happening, or exactly where it is all going.  What you need is to recognize the possibilities and challenges offered by the present moment, and to embrace them with courage, faith and hope.”    (Thomas Merton)

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“Don’t ask the world to change….you change first.”    (Anthony de Mello)

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