Catalyst Quotes

“Become a New Person / Be True to Yourself”

“If death meant just leaving the stage long enough to change costume and come back as a new character… would you slow down?  Or speed up?    (Chuck Palahniuk)

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“The purpose of life is not to be happy.  It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.”    (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

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“The biggest mistake I made is the one that most of us make while doing this.  I did not live in the moment enough.  This is particularly clear now that the moment is gone, captured only in photographs.”    (Anna Quindlen, Loud and Clear)

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“He allowed himself to be swayed by his conviction that human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them, but that life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves.”    (Gabriel García Márquez, Love in the Time of Cholera)

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“Sometimes you have to kind of die inside in order to rise from your own ashes and believe in yourself and love yourself to become a new person.”    (Gerard Way)

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“This above all, to thine own self be true.”    (William Shakespeare)

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“Find That Way, Follow the Connection”

“We are taught you must blame your father, your sisters, your brothers, the school, the teachers – but never blame yourself.  It’s never your fault.  But it’s always your fault, because if you wanted to change, you’re the one who has got to change.”     (Katherine Hepburn, Me:  Stories of My Life)

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“You are the only person who is in charge of how you feel about yourself.  Nobody else can possibly do that.  You get to decide if you believe you are beautiful or not, and nobody can take it away from you.  If someone suggests that you aren’t beautiful, you can consider how sad it is that they have such a limited view of beauty.  You can consider how unfortunate it is that they have such an exaggerated sense of self-importance that they think you should care about what they think.  You can also choose to realize that it has nothing at all to do with your beauty and everything to do with their limitations.”    (Ragen Chastain)

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“When it comes to being gentle, start with yourself.  Don’t get upset with your imperfections.  Being disappointed by failure if understandable, but it shouldn’t turn into bitterness or spite directed at yourself.  It’s a great mistake because it leads nowhere – to get angry because you are angry; upset at being upset; disappointed because you are disappointed.”   (St. Frances de Sales)

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“I tried to drown my sorrows, but those bastards learned how to swim.”    (Frida Kahlo)

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“Don’t you ever let a soul in the world tell you that you can’t be exactly who you are.”   (Lady Gaga)

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“Whatever you desire is already connected in some way to who you are and what you now have.  Find that way, follow the connection.”    (Ralph Marston)

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“Time … Must Be Lived Forward”

“There’s only one day at a time here, then it’s tonight and then tomorrow will be today again.”    (Bob Dylan, Chronicles, Vol. 1)

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“Live today.  Not yesterday.  Not tomorrow.  Just today.  Inhabit your moments.  Don’t rent them out to tomorrow.  Do you know what you’re doing when you spend a moment wondering how things are going to turn out …?  You’re cheating yourself out of today.  Today is calling to you, trying to get your attention, but you’re stuck on tomorrow, and today trickles away like water down a drain.  You wake up the next morning and that today you wasted is gone forever.  It’s now yesterday.  Some of those moments may have had wonderful things in store for you, but now you’ll never know.”     (Jerry Spinelli, Love, Stargirl)

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“A very small percentage of the people in this world will actually experience and live today. So many people will be stuck on another day, another time that traumatized them and caused them to spiritually stutter so they miss out on this day.”    (Steve Maraboli, Unapologetically You:  Reflections on Life and the Human Experience)

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“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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“You can shed the past.  You can’t shake it, but you can certainly get new skin.  You can grow old and become stronger.”    (Lesra Martin)

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“Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.”    (Sören Kierkegaard)

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“Limits and Challenges”

“I am thankful for all of those who said NO to me.  It’s because of them I’m doing it myself.”    (Albert Einstein)

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“When you say ‘It’s hard’ it actually means ‘I’m not strong enough to fight for it.’  Stop saying it’s hard.  Think positive!”    (Unknown)

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“If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life.  There are no limits.  There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them.”    (Bruce Lee)

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“The only way most people recognize their limits is by trespassing on them.”    (Tom Morris, author of If Aristotle Ran General Motors)

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“Give yourself an even greater challenge than the one you are trying to master and you will develop the powers necessary to overcome the original difficulty.”    (William J. Bennett, The Book of Virtues)         

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“Good things come to those who wait … greater things come to those who get off their ass and do anything to make it happen.”    (Unknown)

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“Don’t Live Life in Fear”

“Laugh, even when you feel too sick or too worn out or tired.

Smile, even when you’re trying not to cry and the tears are blurring your vision.

Sing, even when people stare at you and tell you your voice is crappy.

Trust, even when your heart begs you not to.

Twirl, even when your mind makes no sense of what you see.

Frolic, even when you are made fun of.

Kiss, even when others are watching.

Sleep, even when you’re afraid of what the dreams might bring.

Run, even when it feels like you can’t run any more.

And, always, remember, even when the memories pinch your heart.  

Because the pain of all your experience is what makes you the person you are now.  And without your experience – you are an empty page, a blank notebook, a missing lyric.

What makes you brave is your willingness to live through your … life and hold your head up high the next day.

So don’t live life in fear.  Because you are stronger now, after all the crap has happened, than you ever were back before it started.”     (Alysha Speer)

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“Throughout life people will make you mad, disrespect you and treat you bad.  Let God deal with the things they do, cause hate in your heart will consume you too.”     (Will Smith)

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“Today is a new day.  You will get out of it just what you put into it.  If you have made mistakes, there is always another chance for you.  And supposing you have tried and failed again and again, you may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing that we call ‘failure’ is not falling down, but the staying down.”    (Mary Pickford)

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“Set Your Life on Fire”

“Being happy doesn’t mean that everything is perfect.  It means that you’ve decided to look beyond the imperfections.”    (Gerard Way)

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“To the wrongs that need resistance,

To the right that needs assistance,

To the future in the distance,

Give yourselves.”    (Carrie Chapman Catt)

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“Whatever you desire is already connected in some way to who you are and what you now have.  Find that way, follow the connection.”    (Ralph Marston)

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“You have to expect things of yourself before you can do them.”    (Michael Jordan)

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“We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.”    (Winston Churchill)

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 “Set your life on fire.  Seek those who fan your flames.”    (Rumi)

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