Catalyst Quotes

“Be Kind, Tell the Truth and When You Die, Your Body Breaks Up Into …”

“Be kind to everyone.  You may not be able to save a person, but at least you weren’t one of the people who didn’t try.”   (Chloe Higashida)

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“Sometimes, you have to lie.  But to yourself, you must tell the truth.”   (Louise Fitzhugh, Harriet the Spy)

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“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:  How Life Shows Us What We Need to Know)

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“… an eight-year-old boy who described what happens when you die: ‘Your body breaks up into thousands of pieces and goes into all the people whose lives you have touched. That way you live in them always.’”    (Mark Albion, ‘Making a Life Making a Living: Reclaiming your Purpose and Passion in Business and in Life’)

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“I’ve come to believe that all my past failures and frustrations were actually laying the foundation for the understandings that have created the new level of living in me and now I enjoy every bit of my life and hope best for rest.    (Atul Purohit, Love Vs Destiny)

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“A Statement As to Our Purpose”

“I exist, I am, I am here, I am becoming, I make my own life and no one else makes it for me.  I must face my own shortcomings, mistakes, transgressions. No one can suffer my non-being as I do, but tomorrow is another day, and I must decide to leave my bed and live again.  And if I fail, I don’t have the comfort of blaming you or life or God. ”   (Leo Buscaglia, Living Loving and Learning)

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“The most important kind of freedom is to be what you really are.  You trade in your reality for a role.  You trade in your sense for an act.  You give up your ability to feel, and in exchange, put on a mask.  There can’t be any large-scale revolution until there’s a personal revolution, on an individual level.  It’s got to happen inside first.”    (Jim Morrison)

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“For attractive lips, speak words of kindness.

For lovely eyes, seek out the good in people.

For a slim figure, share your food with the hungry.

For beautiful hair, let a child run their fingers through it once a day.

For poise, walk with the knowledge that you never walk alone.

People, more than things, have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed.  Remember, if you ever need a helping hand, you will find one at the end of each of your arms.

As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands, one for helping yourself and the other for helping others.”    (Sam Levenson)

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“The whole system that we live in drills into us that we’re powerless, that we’re weak, that our society is evil, that it’s fragmented.

It’s all a big fat lie.

We are powerful, beautiful, extraordinary.

There is no reason why we cannot understand who we truly are, where we are going.

There is no reason why the average individual cannot be fully empowered.

We are incredibly powerful beings.”   (Zeitgeist, ‘spirit of the time’)

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“Each of our acts makes a statement as to our purpose.”   (Leo Buscaglia)

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“So, Who’s Writing Your Story?”

“Extend to each person, no matter how trivial the contact, all the care and kindness and understanding and love that you can muster, and do it with no thought of any reward.  Your life will never be the same again.”   (Og Mandino)

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“Don’t be satisfied with stories, how things have gone with others.  Unfold your own myth.”  (Rumi)

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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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“Be wise in the use of time.  The question in life is not ‘how much time do we have?’  The question is ‘what shall we do with it?’”   (Anna Robertson Brown)

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“Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow.”   (Ronald E. Osborn)

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“Did you know the word ‘author’ comes from the same root as the word ‘authentic’?  Yeppers.  To be authentic is to be the author of our own lives. 

So, uh, who’s writing your story?”   (Brian Johnson, Chief Philosopher, “A Philosopher’s Notes”)

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“In the book of life, the answers aren’t in the back.”   (Charlie Brown)

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“Three Things in Human Life Are Important”

“This is my simple religion.  There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy.  Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness.”   (Dalai Lama)

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“Guard well within yourself that treasure, kindness.  Know how to give without hesitation, how to lose without regret, how to acquire without meanness.”    (George Sand)

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“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.”   (Plato)

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“Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can.”   (John Wesley)

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“Hello babies.  Welcome to Earth.  It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter.  It’s round and wet and crowded.  On the outside, babies, you’ve got a hundred years here.  There’s only one rule that I know of, babies – ‘_ _ _damn it, you’ve got to be kind.’”   (Kurt Vonnegut)

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“Three things in human life are important:  the first is to be kind.  The second is to be kind.  The third is to be kind.”   (Henry James)

“You Have to Say That You Can”

“The future is not a scenario written, which we only have to act out; it is a work which we have to create.”    (Roger Garaudy)

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“At any time, you can rethink your life and reinvent yourself.

Choose your words better and say/affirm exclusively what you aspire to create in your life.

Dare to dream and dare to stand out.  Get off the beaten path.”    (Denise Pitre) 

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“It is a painful thing to say to oneself: by choosing one road I am turning my back on a thousand others. Everything is interesting; everything might be useful; everything attracts and charms a noble mind; but death is before us; mind and matter make their demands; willy-nilly we must submit and rest content as to things that time and wisdom deny us, with a glance of sympathy which is another act of our homage to the truth.”   (Antonin Sertillanges, The Intellectual Life: Its Spirit, Conditions, Methods)

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“If you’re going to try, go all the way.  Otherwise, don’t even start.  This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives and maybe even your mind.  It could mean not eating for three or four days.  It could mean freezing on a park bench. It could mean jail.  It could mean derision.  It could mean mockery – isolation. Isolation is the gift.  All the others are a test of your endurance, of how much you really want to do it.  And, you’ll do it, despite rejection and the worst odds. And it will be better than anything else you can imagine.  If you’re going to try, go all the way.  There is no other feeling like that.  You will be alone with the gods, and the nights will flame with fire.  You will ride life straight to perfect laughter.  It’s the only good fight there is.”    (Charles Bukowski)

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“The first step is you have to say that you can.”   (Will Smith)

“In Every Problem There is a Lesson to Learn”

“We’re all going to die, all of us, what a circus!  That alone should make us love each other but it doesn’t.  We are terrorized and flattened by trivialities; we are eaten up by nothing.”  (Charles Bukowski)

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“We can either own our circumstances and be creative in them, or we can throw up our hands and say, I cannot be held accountable because the conditions are not ideal.”   (Patti Digh, Creative Is a Verb:  If You’re Alive, You’re Creative)

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“You’ve got choices, like any other creature.  You can stumble down that road, pretending you can’t help it.  You can curl up and die of regret and sorrow for what you’ve done.  Or you can get up and fight, even though the battle might be lost.”   (Kersten Hamilton, Tyger Tyger)

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“We must assume every event has significance and contains a message that somehow pertains to our questions. This especially applies to what we used to call bad things. The challenge is to find the silver lining in every event, no matter how negative.”   (James Redfield, The Celestine Prophecy)

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“In every problem there is a lesson to learn, an asset to acquire, a rest to restore, a bitterness to sweeten, a load to lighten or a price to pay.”    (Ikechukwu Joseph)

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“Do What You Are Afraid to Do”

“Life is indeed a gamble, the ultimate game of chance, based purely upon having the ability to make the right choices at the right time.  You never win or lose in life if you realize it is all just for the experience. Learn to create your own destiny; don’t wait to see what fate throws your way.”   (Steven Redhead, Keys to Creating Your Reality)

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“Once we rid ourselves of traditional thinking, we can get on with creating the future.”   (James Bertrand)

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“The path to wisdom does, in fact, begin with a single step.  Where people go wrong is in ignoring all the thousands of other steps that come after it.  They make the single step of deciding to become one with the universe and for some reason forget to take the logical next step of living for seventy years on a mountain and a daily bowl of rice and yak butter tea that would give it any meaning.  While evidence says that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions, they’re probably all on first steps.”   (Terry Pratchett)

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“In the beginning, spirituality is a seeking practice.  We seek peace, we seek joy, we seek wisdom, we seek awakening, we seek self betterment.  Farther down the road, the realization comes that we already are the peace and joy and wisdom and awakening and self betterment that we seek.  At that point, spirituality becomes what it is … Not a practice of seeking anything. But a practice of uncovering what was there inside you all along.  You already are the light at the end of the tunnel.  You already are the wisdom, you already are the peace, you already are the joy.  You already are awakened, you already are perfect.  All that’s left is for you to discover that you are.”   (Teal Scott)

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“A man, who seeks only the light, while shirking his responsibilities, will never find illumination.  And one who keeps his eyes fixed upon the sun ends up blind.

It doesn’t matter what others think – because that’s what they will think, in any case.  So, relax.

Let the universe move about.  Discover the joy of surprising yourself.

The master says:  ‘Make use of every blessing that God gave you today.  A blessing cannot be saved.’

There is no bank where we can deposit blessings received, to use them when we see fit.  If you do not use them, they will be irretrievably lost.  God knows that we are creative artists when it comes to our lives.  On one day, he gives us clay for sculpting, on another, brushes and canvas, or a pen.  But we can never use clay on our canvas, nor pens in sculpture.  Each day has its own miracle.  Accept the blessings, work, and create your minor works of art today. Tomorrow you will receive others.”   (Paulo Coelho, Maktub)

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“Always do what you are afraid to do.”    (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

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“Down the Road to Wisdom”

“It’s a lot easier to be lost than found.  It’s the reason we’re always searching and rarely discovered – so many locks not enough keys.”   (Sarah Dessen)

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“There are only two questions that human beings have ever fought over, all through history. ‘How much do you love me?’ and ‘Who’s in charge?’  Everything else is somehow manageable.  But these two questions of love and control undo us all, trip us up and cause war, grief and suffering.”   (Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love)

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“If we doubted our fears instead of doubting our dreams, imagine how much in life we’d accomplish.”   (Joel Brown)

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“Sometimes life isn’t about the end.  It’s not always about tomorrow and the day after that, what we achieve over the years and how we leave the world.  Sometimes it’s about today.

Any of us could die tomorrow regardless of the horde.  We could get sick or be injured or anything else.  That’s the risk we take waking up each morning and stepping outside.”   (Carrie Ryan, The Dark and Hollow Places) 

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“Don’t do what you want.  Do what you don’t want.  Do what you’re trained not to want.  Do the things that scare you the most.”   (Chuck Palahniuk)

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“The Road to Wisdom

The road to wisdom?

Well, it’s plain and simple to express:

Err and err and err again

but less and less and less.”   (Piet Hein)

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“I hate how my past actions keep messing up my future options, Seth muttered.

Then you’ve started down the road to wisdom, Grandpa replied.”   (Brandon Mull, Secrets of the Dragon Sanctuary)

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“Be, Don’t Become”

“Children teach you that you can still be humbled by life, that you learn something new all the time.  That’s the secret to life, really — never stop learning.  It’s the secret to career.  I’m still working because I learn something new all the time.  It’s the secret to relationships. Never think you’ve got it all.”    (Clint Eastwood)

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“I think that you find your own way.  You have your own rules.  You have your own understanding of yourself, and that’s what you’re going to count on.  In the end, it’s what feels right to you.  Not what your mother told you.  Not what some actress told you.  Not what anybody else told you but the still, same voice.”    (Meryl Streep)

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“The four hardest tasks on earth are neither physical nor intellectual feats, but spiritual ones:

    1)  to return love for hate;

    2)  to include the excluded;

    3)  to forgive without apology, and

    4)  to be able to say ‘I was wrong.’”       (Anon)

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“All that we are is the result of what we have thought.  If a man speaks or acts with an evil thought, pain follows him.  If a man speaks or acts with a pure thought, happiness follows him, like a shadow that never leaves him.”    (Buddha)

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“Be — don’t try to become.”    (Osho)

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“To Find the Yellow Brick Road, Start On the Dusty, Dirt One”

“Usually, the best way to find the yellow brick road of your life is to start out on the dusty, dirt one.

And then let yourself become so preoccupied in making the best of it, having fun, and challenging yourself that you actually stop paying attention to the path.

Until, one day, not so long from now, with a new best friend, wearing cool clothes, feeling awesome, a teeny tiny bit taller, fresh from a WOW vacation, looking for the path you just left, you’ll notice that it’s 24 carats… baby.

And you’ll wonder for a long, long time, sipping on some exotic fruit drink, when the transformation actually took place…

Also wondering, as everyone always does, ‘Whatever did I do to deserve so much, so fast…?’

    (signed)   The Universe”         (Mike Dooley, Notes from the Universe, 8.15.13)

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“The first and most important principle in asking for and getting what you want is the ‘ground of being’ from which you ask.  By ‘ground of being’ we mean your state of thinking in regard to your level of certainty about getting what you are asking for.  If your expectation is that you will get what you are asking for, it will affect everything else — your body posture, eye contact, tone of voice and choice of words .…

Start with the assumption that you can get what you want.”    (Jack Canfield & Mark V. Hanson, The Aladdin Factor)

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“For me the world is weird because it is stupendous, awesome, mysterious, un-fathomable; my interest has been to convince you that you must assume responsibility for being here, in this marvelous world, in this marvelous desert, in this marvelous time.  I want to convince you that you must learn to make every act count, since you are going to be here for only a short while, in fact, too short for witnessing all the marvels of it.”    (Carlos Castaneda, Journey to Ixtlan)

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“The person who really wants to do something finds a way; the other person finds an excuse.”    (Unknown Author)

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“I cannot tell you any spiritual truth that deep within you don’t know already.  All I can do is remind you of what you have forgotten.”    (Eckhart Tolle)

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