Life | Catalyst Quotes

Archive for the category “Life”

16 Oct 2012

“Just Blow Another One”

“The most basic of all human needs is the need to understand and be understood. The best way to understand people is to listen to them.” (Ralph Nichols )

“Be the change you seek to make in the world.” Leaders must embody the values and principles they want other people to adopt. This famous Gandhi quote reminds us all — executives with associates, political leaders with followers, or parents with children — that one of the most important tasks is personal: to be a role model, exemplifying the best of what the change is all about.” (Rosabeth Moss Kanter, (One of) Seven Truths about Change to Lead By and Live By, Harvard Business Review)

“One might take children’s philosophy to heart. They do not despise a bubble because it burst; they immediately set to work to blow another one.” (EDGE Keynote)

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16 Oct 2012

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“And You Thought I Wasn’t Listening”

This post will be different from what I have done in the past so my apologies to those who were expecting profound quotes to help them through the day but I felt compelled to tell you a story.

As you’ve seen with my blog, I use quotes from other people to convey what I am thinking or things that I wish to share with others. Many of my friends or previous co-workers know that I find it easier to use someone else’s words to say what I am thinking or wish to send out a message. As Michel Montaigne stated, “I quote others only to better express myself.” Many may find this approach rather lazy; I happen to believe it’s a good way to use whatever resources are available to me.

I mention the above only because I wanted to share a story to you. I wasn’t feeling good today and wanted to have some soup so when I reached in the kitchen cabinet for a cup big enough to hold my soup, I came upon an oversized coffee cup that my son had given to me years ago. Sadly, I don’t remember the occasion as to why he gave me the cup; whether it was my birthday or Father’s Day.

Anyway, on the inside and outside of the cup, there is “writing” or inscription that came with the cup which should be familiar quotes but somehow are not what they should be. The writing on the outside states:

“DAD, thanks to your lectures, I never change horses in the middle of a job worth doing, I know the squeaky wheel gets the worm, and I never count my chickens until I’ve walked a mile in their shoes.”

On the inside of the cup, the writing, which would be visible as you drink from it, states:

“And you thought I wasn’t listening.”

I share this story with you because my son, his wife and his new baby son are visiting us from out of town for the week. As I stare at my new baby grandson, tears come to me when I think of what is to come for him in the future. They are tears of joy because he has a wonderful father, a beautiful mother and a darling sister (from a previous marriage), aunts and uncles and of course wonderful grandparents (from both sides) who will guide him and help him as he grows and becomes a man. They are also tears of sadness because he will be faced with a number of problems that we – all of us – will leave for him and all the other little babies in the world. I can only wish that there will be a better world in the coming years for him, my other grandchild and my teenage daughter as well as everyone else.

So, to my son I hope that he will follow this quote that I remember when my daughter was born: “I want to help you grow as beautiful as God meant you to be when He thought of you first.” (George MacDonald) and to my grandbaby Jake, I will tell him …. ‘use the force dude as you go to infinity and beyond!”

P.S. Thank you Hallmark for making the wonderful cup that my son gave to me. ~ GMUniverse

Posted in Inspiration, Life

15 Oct 2012

“Insanely Awesome”

“Lighten up. Take in some fresh air and sunlight. Face challenges eagerly. Look through the eyes of appreciation. Relish adventure. Forgive your parents and cut yourself some slack. Make someone happy. Never be disheartened. Re-invent. Reach. Risk. Refuse, resist and re-use. Walk the dog. Surrender. Do not wait for a better world. Dance with the stars. Let it go. Expect the best. Know all difficulties in your life have purpose.” (The Body Shop)

“One of the Nintendo game designers asked the company’s chief, ‘What should I make?’ He replied, ‘Make something great!’ Can there be a more powerful response?” (Attributed to Nintendo’s President Hiroshi Yamauchi by Tom Peters)

“Why settle for being effective when you could be insanely awesome?” (Zenith Data Systems)

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15 Oct 2012

“Now is the Time”

“The Victim curses the wind. The Survivor waits for it to change. The Navigator adjusts the sails. You have to take it as it happens, but you should try to make it happen the way you want to take it.” (German Proverb)

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” (Mark Twain)

“Now is the accepted time, not tomorrow, not some more convenient season. It is today that our best work can be done and not some future day or future year. It is today that we fit ourselves for the greater usefulness of tomorrow. Today is the seed time, now are the hours of work, and tomorrow comes the harvest and the playtime.” (W. E. B. Du Bois)

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14 Oct 2012

Our Eyes and Miracles

“The eye with which I see God is the same eye with which God sees me.” (Meister Eckhart)

“What is behind your eyes holds more power than what is in front of them.” (“Thoughts from the Seat of the Soul” by Gary Zukav)

“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.” (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

“Miracles … seem to me to rest not so much upon faces or voices or healing power coming suddenly near to us from afar off, but upon our perceptions being made finer, so that for a moment our eyes can see and our ears can hear what is there about us always.” (Death Comes for the Archbishop, Willa Cather)

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13 Oct 2012

“Our Lives Echo in Eternity”

“Live without pretending, love without depending,

listen without defending, speak without offending.”

(Drake)

“Do more than exist – live.

Do more than touch – feel.

Do more than look – observe.

Do more than read – absorb.

Do more than hear – listen.

Do more than listen – understand.

(John H. Rhoades)

“What we do in life echoes in eternity.”

(Maximus, from the movie ‘Gladiator’)

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12 Oct 2012

“Do You Deserve It?”

“There are three kinds of people:

1) the ones that learn by reading,

2) the few who learn by observation,

3) the rest who have to pee on the electric fence.”

(Will Rogers, American humorist)

“Choose your glasses very carefully. A few years ago I ran into an old acquaintance that I hadn’t seen for awhile. Our short conversation confirmed just why I hadn’t seen him in awhile – and wouldn’t see him again soon if I could help it. I started off with, “Hey Phil. How’s it going?” His response was, “Oh, you know; same crap, different day.” His expletive-laced language was much spicier than that, but you get the picture. He then proceeded to proudly pile up the most recent crap in his life and invited me to wallow in it with him.

Our world does have an abundance of crap. There’s lots of injustice, inequality, and unfairness. The crap that hits the fan in life is often not evenly distributed. But we get to decide whether to stand in it or not. We decide if we want today to be crappy or happy. If we walk around with our “crap glasses” on, we’ll see lots of it. The more crap we look for, the more crap we see. The more crap we see, the more we look for. My friend, fellow performance improvement author/speaker, and psychologist, Peter Jensen calls this ‘opticalrectumitis,’ which he loosely translates as ‘having a shi… (crappy) outlook on life.’ ” (Jim Clemmer)

“Do you deserve it? Do you deserve the luck you’ve been handed? The place you were born, the education you were given, the job you’ve got? Do you deserve your tribe, your customer base, your brand? Not at all. “Deserve” is such a loaded word. The question shouldn’t be, “do you deserve it.” I think it should be, “what are you going to do with it now that you’ve got it?” (Seth Godin)

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11 Oct 2012

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Imagination, Truth and Bliss

“Only in men’s imagination does every truth find an effective and undeniable existence. Imagination, not invention, is the supreme master of art, as of life.” (Joseph Conrad)

“Why abandon a belief merely because it ceases to be true? Cling to it long enough and … it will turn true again, for so it goes. Most of the change we think we see in life is due to truths being in and out of favors.” (Robert Frost)

“Follow your bliss.” (Joseph Campbell)

Posted in Attitude, Inspiration, Life, Uncategorized

11 Oct 2012

“Dreams Soon Become Inevitable”

“Before you can lead others, before you can help others, you have to discover yourself. Today a leader can’t impose himself on others. He makes himself available to others. And nothing is more powerful than someone who knows who they are. The traditional view of leadership talks about leadership as a package, but it looks at the outside of the package. I’m talking about starting with what’s inside the package.” (Joe Jaworski, Synchronicity)

“It’s one of the characteristics of a leader that he not doubt, for one moment, the capacity of the people he’s leading to realize whatever he’s dreaming.” (Benjamin Zander, TED – Ideas Worth Spreading)

“So many of our dreams at first seem impossible, then they seem improbable, and then, when we summon the will, they soon become inevitable.” (Christopher Reeve, aka ‘Superman’)

Think back on the leaders you have worked for or know of. What do you believe made them a success? Those that were successful knew themselves well – strengths and weaknesses, believed in their mission and trusted, cared about and had deep confidence in the people they ‘served.’ ‘Servant leadership’ – successful leaders ‘served’ the people who reported to them. As a result, the leaders’, no wait …, the teams’ dreams became inevitable. Be a ‘servant leader’ and make dreams come true. ~ GMUniverse

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10 Oct 2012

“What We Are in Potentiality”

“One doesn’t discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.” (Andre Gide)

“He who knows much about others may be learned, but he who understands himself is more intelligent. He who controls others may be powerful, but he who has mastered himself is mightier still.” (Lao-Tsu)

“We are not in a position in which we have nothing to work with. We already have a start; we already have capacities, talents, direction, missions, callings. The job is, if we are willing to take it seriously, to help ourselves to be more perfectly what we already are, to be more full, more actualizing, more realizing, in fact, what we are in potentiality.” (Abraham Maslow, The Farthest Reaches of Human Nature