Catalyst Quotes

“Life – What and How You Remember It”

“Do you think we choose the times into which we are born?  Or do we fit the times we are born into?”     (Abraham Lincoln, ‘Lincoln’ the movie)

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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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“In the long run, we shape our lives, and we shape ourselves.  The process never ends until we die.  And the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility.”       (Eleanor Roosevelt)

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“The most authentic thing about us is our capacity to create, to overcome, to endure, to transform, to love and to be greater than our suffering.”    (Ben Okri)

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“Life has three rules:  Paradox, Humor, and Change.

*  Paradox:  Life is a mystery; don’t waste your time trying to figure it out.

*  Humor:  Keep a sense of humor, especially about yourself. It is a strength beyond all measure.

*  Change:  Know that nothing ever stays the same.”      (Dan Millman, Way of the Peaceful Warrior:  A Book That Changes Lives)      

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“What matters in life is not what happens to you but what you remember and how you remember it.”     (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)

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“Anything Can Be”

“All men and women are born, live, suffer and die; what distinguishes us one from another is our dreams, whether they be dreams about worldly or unworldly things, and what we do to make them come about …  We do not choose to be born.  We do not choose our parents.  We do not choose our historical epoch, the country of our birth, or the immediate circumstances of our upbringing.  We do not, most of us, choose to die; nor do we choose the time and conditions of our death.  But within this realm of choicelessness, we do choose how we live.”    (Joseph Epstein)

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“Take time to work, it is the price of success.

Take time to think, it is the source of power.

Take time to play, it is the secret of perpetual youth.

Take time to read, it is the foundation of wisdom.

Take time to be friendly, it is the road to happiness.

Take time to dream, it is hitching your wagon to a star.

Take time to love & be loved, it is the privilege of the gods.

Take time to look around, it is too short a day to be selfish.

Take time to laugh, it is the music of the soul.”     (Old English Prayer)

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“Love cures people  –  both the ones who give it and the ones who receive it.”    (Karl A. Menninger)

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“Listen to the mustn’ts, child.  Listen to the don’ts.  Listen to the shouldn’ts, the impossible, the won’ts.  Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me … Anything can happen, child.  Anything can be.”     (Shel Silverstein)

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“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.”     (Anais Nin)

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“Thermodynamic Miracles — Human Beings, Spiritual Beings”

“Don’t compromise yourself.  You are all you’ve got.”    (Janis Joplin)

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“Thermodynamic miracles … events with odds against so astronomical they’re effectively impossible … I long to observe such a thing.  And yet, in each human coupling, a thousand million sperm vie for a single egg.  Multiply those odds by countless generations, against the odds of your ancestors being alive; meeting; siring this precise son; that exact daughter … Until your mother loves a man she has every reason to hate, and of that union, of the thousand million children competing for fertilization, it was you, only you that emerged.  To distill so specific a form from that chaos of improbability … that is the crowning unlikelihood.  The thermodynamic miracle … But the world is so full of people, so crowded with these miracles that they become commonplace and we forget … I forget.  We gaze continually at the world and it grows dull in our perceptions.  Yet seen from the other’s vantage point.  As if new, it may still take our breath away.”     (Alan Moore, ‘Watchmen’)

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“We are not human beings having a spiritual experience; we are spiritual beings having a human experience.”    (Pierre Teilhard de Chardin)

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“Always new, always exciting, always full of promise, the mornings of our lives, each a personal daily miracle.”     (Gloria Gaither)

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“Miracles start to happen when you give as much energy to your dreams as you do to your fears. “     (Richard Wilkins)

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“Pay Attention”

“There are no ordinary moments.”    (Dan Millman)

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“Faith means living with uncertainty – feeling your way through life, letting your heart guide you like a lantern in the dark.”    (Dan Millman)

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“To achieve the impossible, one must think the absurd; to look where everyone else has looked but to see what no else has seen.”     (Unknown Author)

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“Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else.”   (Judy Garland)

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“Everything in life comes to you as a teacher.

Pay attention.

Learn quickly.”

(Old Cherokee Woman to Her Grandson)

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“Getting Unstuck”

“Leaders spend considerable effort gazing across the horizon of time, imagining what it will be like when they have arrived at their final destinations.  Some call it vision; others describe it as a purpose, mission, goal, even personal agenda.  Regardless of what we call it, there is a desire to make sure something happens, to change the way things are, to create something that no one else has ever created before.”     (Kouses & Posner, The Leadership Challenge)

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“There are some people who interpret ‘pro-active’ to mean pushy, aggressive, or insensitive; but that isn’t the case at all.  Proactive people aren’t pushy.  They’re smart, they’re value driven, they read reality, and they know what’s needed.  Test the principle of pro-activity for thirty days and see what happens.  Make small commitments and keep them.  Be a light, not a judge.  Be a model, not a critic.  Be part of the solution, not part of the problem.”     (Stephen Covey)

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“Most of us are trained to be logical.  When given a problem or roadblock, we try to dig into the facts.  Determine a path based on data.  Argue our case using data.  And when that isn’t working, pile on more data.  Often motivating teams to take the right action requires first doing something else entirely; spending time building a common identity, or picking a common enemy, or gaining a common understanding.  Getting unstuck involves appealing not just to your team’s rational mind, but also to its soul.”      (Unstuck, Keith Yamashita & Sandra Spataro)

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“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs.  Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and then go do it.  Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”     (Harold Thurman Whitman)

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“Reach High But Walk on the Earth”

“Reach high, for the stars lie hidden in your soul.  Dream deep, for every dream precedes the goal. “     (Pamela Starr)

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“The miracle is not to fly in the air, or to walk on the water; but to walk on the earth.”     (Chinese Proverb)

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“When you find your path, you must ignore fear.  You need to have the courage to risk mistakes.  But once you are on that road … run, run, run, and don’t stop ‘til you’ve reached its end.”     (José N. Harris)

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“Know who you are, and be it.  Know what you want, and go out and get it!”     (Carroll Bryant)

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“To think is easy.  To act is difficult.  To act as one thinks is the most difficult.”     (Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe)

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“Be”

“Opportunity is always knocking.  The problem is that most people have the self-doubt station in their heads turned up way too loud to hear it.”     (Brian Vaszily)

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“We must always change, renew, rejuvenate ourselves;  otherwise we harden.”     (Goethe)

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“I would simply like to be forgiven and forgotten.  There is no need to remember me.  The need is to remember yourself!       (Rajneesh)

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Six Line Prayer

“Be still and know that I am God.

Be still and know that I am.

Be still and know.

Be still.

Be.

(Unknown Author)

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“I Can Do Anything”

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

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“The journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.”    (Lao Tzu)

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“Everything you’ll ever need to know is within you; the secrets of the universe are imprinted on the cells of your body.”    (Dan Millman)

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“I can do anything.  I can be anything.  No one ever told me I couldn’t.  No one ever expressed this idea that I was limited to any one thing, and so I think in terms of what’s possible, not impossible. 

 So yeah, I think anything is possible.  I know it because I have lived it.  I know it because I have seen it.  I have witnessed things the ancients would have called miracles, but they are not miracles.  They are products of someone’s dream, and they happened as the result of hard work.  Or they happened because, you k now, [stuff] happens.  As human beings, we are capable of creating a paradise, and making each other’s lives better by our own hands.  Yes, yes, yes … this is possible.”     (Whoopi Goldberg, The Little Big Book of Life, Edited by Natasha Fried & Lena Tabori)

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“Extract Your Uniqueness”

“When you life gets to be overwhelming, when you feel like too much of the world is depressing, there are two things you can do:  One, sit in your house and feel the doom and gloom and continue to watch the news, shaking your head in resignation and saying to yourself, ‘Oh no, my life sucks.  The world is ending, there’s nothing I can do.’  This is one way to go.  I personally, wouldn’t recommend it.

‘Well,’ you say, ‘what’s the other option?’

Here it is:  If you must watch the news, turn the sound off and imagine the news anchor people are telling you all about your day.  Make up happy events, adding your name into the report every third or fourth sentence.

Sing aloud with wild abandonment as you get dressed in the morning (any cheery song will do).

And most important, get yourself some daily affirmations.”       (Ellen DeGeneres)

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“Look back over your life.  What have you consistently done well?  What have you loved to do?  Stand at the intersection of your affections and successes and find your uniqueness.”

“Don’t worry about skills you don’t have.  Don’t covet strengths others do have.  Just extract your uniqueness.”     (Lucado, Max. “Life to the Max – A Max Lucado Digital Sampler.”  Thomas Nelson)

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“Unless commitment is made, there are only promises and hopes … but no plans.”     (Peter Drucker)

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