Catalyst Quotes

“Does Life Suck Sometimes?”

There are no ‘good’ or ‘bad’ people.   Some are a little better or a little worse, but all are activated more by misunderstanding than malice.   A blindness to what is going on in each other’s hearts… nobody sees anybody truly but all through the flaws of their own egos.   That is the way we all see …each other in life.   Vanity, fear, desire, competition — all such distortions within our own egos– condition our vision of those in relation to us.   Add to those distortions to our own egos the corresponding distortions in the egos of others, and you see how cloudy the glass must become through which we look at each other.   That’s how it is in all living relationships except when there is that rare case of two people who love intensely enough to burn through all those layer of opacity and see each other’s naked hearts.   Such cases seem purely theoretical to me…”    (Tennessee Williams)

Does life suck sometimes?    Absolutely.

Nonetheless you and only you own your attitude.   Realistically, things may stink to high heaven.   Still, the day is yours to embrace with vigor and good cheer  –  or not.   Your call.    100%.    Period.     (Tom Peters)

“Don’t find fault, find a remedy.”       (Henry Ford)

“If someone were to pay you 10 cents for every kind word you ever spoke and collect 5 cents for every unkind word, would you be rich or poor?”     (Author Unknown)

“What’s Between You and Your Goal? A BS Story?”

“People are often unreasonable and self-centered.   Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of ulterior motives.   Be kind anyway.

If you are honest, people may cheat you.   Be honest anyway.

If you find happiness, people may be jealous.   Be happy anyway.

The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow.   Do good anyway.

Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough.   Give your best anyway.

For you see, in the end, it is between you and God.

It was never between you and them anyway.”     (Mother Teresa)

“That is why it is so important to let certain things go.   To release them.   To cut loose.   People need to understand that no one is playing with marked cards; sometimes we win and sometimes we lose.   Don’t expect to get anything back, don’t expect recognition for your efforts, don’t expect your genius to be discovered or your love to be understood.   Complete the circle.   Not out of pride, inability or arrogance, but simply because whatever it is no longer fits in your life.   Close the door, change the record, clean the house, get rid of the dust.   Stop being who you were and become who you are.       (Paulo Coelho)

“Hold yourself responsible for a higher standard than anyone else expects of you.   Never excuse yourself.”       (Henry Ward Beecher)

“The only thing standing between you and your goal is the BS story you keep telling yourself as to why you can’t achieve it.”      (Jordan Belfort)

“Self-Growth is Holy Ground – Follow Your Heart”

“Be patient with yourself.   Self-growth is tender; it’s holy ground.   There’s no greater investment.”     (Stephen Covey)

“Your time is limited; don’t waste it living someone else’s life.   Don’t be trapped by dogma, which is living the result of other people’s thinking.  Don’t let the noise of other’s opinion drown your own inner voice.   And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition, they somehow already know what you truly want to become.   Everything else is secondary.”       (Steve Jobs)

“A man should always wear a garment with two pockets.  In one pocket, there should be a note which reads, ‘I am but dust and ashes.’  In the other pocket, there should be a paper which says, ‘For me, the world was created.’”     (Hasidic Wisdom, excerpt from If Aristotle Ran General Motors by Tom Morris)

“I have walked this earth for thirty years and, out of gratitude, want to leave some souvenir.”    (Vincent Van Gogh)

“Everything in the universe is within you.   Ask all from yourself.”     (Rumi)

“A #2 Pencil and a Dream”

“All things are possible to him who believes; they are less difficult to him who hopes; they are easy to him who loves; and they are simple to anyone who does all three.”     (Brother Lawrence)

“You are never given a wish without also being given the power to make it true.   You may have to work for it, however.”     (Richard Bach)

“Keep on going and the chances are you will stumble on something, perhaps when you are least expecting it.   I have never heard of anyone stumbling on something sitting down.”     (Charles F. Kettering)

“A #2 pencil and a dream can take you anywhere.”     (J. Meyers)

“Go Beyond Into the Impossible”

“What would you attempt to do if you knew you would not fail?”    (Robert Schuller)

“As is our confidence, so is our capacity.”      (William Hazlitt)

“There comes a time in a man’s life when to get where he has to go … if there are no doors or windows … he walks through a wall.”       (Bernard Malamud)

“When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it.   Yet, at the hundred and first blow, it will split in two; and I know it was not that blow that did it, but all that had gone before.”      (Jacob Riis)

“The only way to discover the limits of the possible is to go beyond them into the impossible.”     (Arthur C. Clarke)

“What to Do This Morning”

“I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve (or save) the world and a desire to enjoy (or savor) the world.  This makes it hard to plan the day.”    (E. B. White)

I had a monumental idea this morning, but I didn’t like it.      (Samuel Goldwyn)

“I know who I was when I got up this morning, but I must have been changed several times since then.”     (Alice, Alice in Wonderland)

“Do not say, ‘It is morning,’ and dismiss it with a name of yesterday.   See it for the first time as a newborn child that has no name.”   (Rabindranath Tagore)

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

“At the beginning of the day, it’s all about possibilities.    At the end, it’s all about results.”   (Bob Prosen)