Catalyst Quotes

“So How Good Do You Want to Be?”

“So, we shall let the reader answer this question for himself:  who is the happier man, he who has braved the storm of life and lived or he who has stayed securely on shore and merely existed?”    (Hunter S. Thompson)

“What could be worse than getting to the end of your life and realizing you hadn’t lived it.”    (Edward Albee)

“Fortune knocks at every man’s door once in a life, but in a good many cases the man is in a neighboring saloon and does not hear her.”     (Mark Twain)

“Excuses always come from the losing locker room.”    (Lou Holtz)

“So how good do you want to be?  All of us want to be good at our jobs, but how good do we really want to be?  Quite good.  Good.  Very good.  The best in the field.  Or the best in the world?  Talent helps, but it won’t take you as far as ambition. … Everybody wants to be good, but not many are prepared to make the sacrifices it takes to be great.  Most people are looking for a solution, a way to become good. There is no instant solution, the only way to learn is through experience and mistakes.  You will become whoever you want to be.  You can achieve the unachievable.

First, you need to aim beyond what you are capable of.  You must develop a complete disregard for where your abilities end.  Try to do the things that you’re incapable of.  If you think you’re unable to work for the best company in its sphere, make that your aim.  If you think you’re incapable of running a company, make that your aim.  If you think you’re unable to be on the cover of Time magazine, make it your business to be there.  Make your vision of where you want to be a reality.  Nothing is impossible.”    (Paul Arden, It’s Not How Good You Are, It’s How Good You Want to Be)

“Do something brilliant every day.  Sell something in a dynamic way.  Spectacularly deliver a presentation.  Slash through a difficult obstacle.  Dream a wonderful dream.”    (Roger von Oech)

“Shoot for the moon.  Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.”   (Norman Vincent Peale)

“The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn.”    (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

“I am personally convinced that one person can be a change catalyst, a ‘transformer’ in any situation, any organization.  Such an individual is yeast that can leaven an entire loaf.  It requires vision, initiative, patience, respect, persistence, courage, and faith to be a transforming leader.”    (Stephen R. Covey)

“Nothing will work unless you do.”    (Maya Angelou)

“Do Not Let Your Fire Go Out”

“Imagination does not become great until human beings, given the courage and the strength, use it to create.”    (Maria Montessori)

“Everything is created twice, first in the mind and then in reality.”   (Robin S. Sharma, The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari: A Fable About Fulfilling Your Dreams and Reaching Your Destiny)

“We must not, in trying to think about how we can make a big difference, ignore the small daily differences we can make which, over time, add up to big differences that we often cannot foresee.”    (Marian Wright Edelman)

“Going after a dream has a price.  It may mean abandoning our habits, it may make us go through hardships, or it may lead us to disappointment.  But however costly it may be, it is never as high as the price paid by people who didn’t live.”    (Paulo Coelho)

“Man often becomes what he believes himself to be.  If I keep on saying to myself that I cannot do a certain thing, it is possible that I may end by really becoming incapable of doing it.  On the contrary, if I have the belief that I can do it, I shall surely acquire the capacity to do it even if I may not have it at the beginning.”    (Mahatma Gandhi)

“Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark in the hopeless swamps of the not-quite, the not-yet, and the not-at-all.  Do not let the hero in your soul perish in lonely frustration for the life you deserved and have never been able to reach.  The world you desire can be won.  It exists…  it is real…  it is possible…  it’s yours.”   (Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged)

“Always dream and shoot higher than you know you can do.  Do not bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors.  Try to be better than yourself.”    (William Faulkner)

“The universe conspires to help the dreamer.”    (Paulo Coelho)

“I’ve Seen and Met Angels”

“Sometimes you will sit next to a stranger and that stranger will say something nice to you and uplift your day.  Very often, that was an angel or spirit guide.”   (Unknown)

“I’ve seen and met angels wearing the disguise of ordinary people living ordinary lives.”    (Tracy Chapman)

“Some angels choose cleverly disguised lives in time and space, just to help folks get past judging by appearances.
No, they’re not much to look at, listen to, or dance with, and most would never guess they’re angels… but that’s the point.
Every soul is beautiful.”  (signed) The Universe”    (Mike Dooley, Notes from the Universe, 6.24.14)

“Most people don’t know that there are angels whose only job is to make sure you don’t get too comfortable and fall asleep and miss your life.”     (Brian Andreas)

“Angels walk among us,
Sometimes the only thing we may not see are the wings upon their backs.”     (Molly Friedenfeld)

“In this busy modernized age, it’s easy to be blind to the light all around us.  You see, there truly are real angels living among us that look just like you and I.  If you pay attention, you can spot one because they’re quite easy to find.  They’re the souls with the eternally deep eyes that always act like something is broken inside, but fail to realize it’s just their wings.”     (Suzy Kassem)

“’People say there’s the Angel of Life and the Angel of Death, but there’s another one, too. The one who walks among us.’
He could tell that she was listening.
‘He’s nothing fierce or terrible or filled with light.  He’s like us, sometimes we can’t even tell him apart.  Sometimes we’re the ones who try to save him.  He’s there to show us who we are.
Human beings aren’t Gods.  We make mistakes.’”     (Alice Hoffman, The Third Angel)

“Make yourself a blessing to someone.  Your kind smile or pat on the back just might pull someone back from the edge.”     (Carmelia Elliot)

“Tonight I sent an angel to watch over you, but it came back.  When I asked why, it told me that angels don’t watch over other angels.”     (Unknown)

“And suddenly you know:  It’s time to start something new and trust the magic of beginnings.”     (Meister Eckhart)

“What Is and What Might Be”

“How sad is the reality that the lives of so many men and women remain perpetually potential with their creative powers largely undiscovered.”   (Fr. Brian Cavanaugh)

“’Live each day as if it’s your last’, that was the conventional advice, but really, who had the energy for that?  What if it rained or you felt a bit glandy?  It just wasn’t practical.  Better by far to simply try and be good and courageous and bold and to make a difference.  Not change the world exactly, but the bit around you.
Go out there with your passion and your electric typewriter and work hard at… something.  Change lives through art maybe.  Cherish your friends, stay true to your principles, live passionately and fully and well.  Experience new things.  Love and be loved, if you ever get the chance.”    (David Nicholls, One Day)

“I mean, I don’t know how the world broke.  And I don’t know if there’s a God who can help us fix it.  But the fact that the world is broken – I absolutely believe that. Just look around us.  Every minute – every single second – there are a million things you could be thinking about.  A million things you could be worrying about.
Our world – don’t you just feel we’re becoming more fragmented?  I used to think that when I got older, the world would make so much more sense.  But you know what?  The older I get, the more confusing it is to me.  The more complicated it is. Harder.  You’d think we’d be getting better at it.  But there’s just more and more chaos.
The pieces – they’re everywhere.  And nobody knows what to do about it.  I find myself grasping, Nick.  You know that feeling?  That feeling when you just want the right thing to fall into the right place, not only because it’s right, but because it would mean that such a thing is still possible?  I want to believe that.”    (Rachel Cohn, Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist)

“I’m not telling you to make the world better, because I don’t think that progress is necessarily part of the package.  I’m just telling you to live in it.  Not just to endure it, not just to suffer it, not just to pass through it, but to live in it. T o look at it.  To try to get the picture.  To live recklessly. T o take chances.  To make your own work and take pride in it.  To seize the moment.  And if you ask me why you should bother to do that, I could tell you that the grave’s a fine and private place, but none I think do there embrace.  Nor do they sing there, or write, or argue, or see the tidal bore on the Amazon, or touch their children.  And that’s what there is to do and get it while you can and good luck at it.”    (Joan Didion)

“What is and what might be.
They have much less in common than you might expect.
The key step in creating a better future is insisting that it not be based on the assumptions, grievances and dead ends of the past.
The future won’t be perfect.  We won’t be perfect.  But we can be kind.  We can listen.  We can give opportunity the benefit of the doubt.
The future won’t always work.  We won’t always succeed.  But we can be alert and seek out the possible instead of the predicted.
The future won’t always be fair.  But we can try.  We can care.  We can choose to connect.
It can be better if we let it.”    (Seth Godin, Seth’s Blog 4.1.18)

“Life can be long or short, it all depends on how you choose to live it.
it’s like forever, always changing.  for any of us our forever could end in an hour, or a hundred years from now.
you can never know for sure, so you’d better make every second count.
what you have to decide is how you want your life to be.
if your forever was ending tomorrow, is this how you’d want to have spent it?”    (Sarah Dessen, The Truth About Forever)

“Your visions will become clear only when you can look into your own heart.  Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.”    (C. G. Jung)

“Vision without execution is just hallucination.”    (Henry Ford)

“Ultimately a hero is a man who would argue with the gods, and so awakens devils to contest his vision.”    (Norman Mailer)

“The purpose of life is to contribute in some way to making things better.”    (Robert F. Kennedy)

“You are not here merely to make a living.  You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement.  You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand.”    (Woodrow Wilson)

“Be Curious; Don’t Just Give Up”

“What is the point of being on this Earth if you are going to be like everyone else?”    (Arnold Schwarzenegger)

“Be yourself;  everyone else is already taken.”    (Oscar Wilde)

“It’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.”    (Lewis Carroll)

“I must be willing to give up what I am in order to become what I will be.”     (Albert Einstein)

“The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.”     (Arthur C. Clarke)

“Don’t bite off more than you can chew because nobody looks attractive spitting it back out.”     (Carroll Bryant)

“The only person who can pull me down is myself, and I’m not going to let myself pull me down anymore.”     (C. JoyBell C.)

“We are what we repeatedly do.  Greatness then, is not an act, but a habit.”    (Aristotle)

“Remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet.  Try to make sense of what you see and wonder about what makes the universe exist.  Be curious.  And however difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at.  It matters that you don’t just give up.”    (Stephen Hawking)

“Calvin: ‘The more you know, the harder it is to take decisive action.  Once you are informed, you start seeing complexities and shades of gray.  You realize nothing is as clear as it first appears.  Ultimately, knowledge is paralyzing.  Being a man of action, I cannot afford to take that risk.’

Hobbes: ‘You’re ignorant, but at least you act on it.’”   (Bill Watterson, The Authoritative Calvin and Hobbes: A Calvin and Hobbes Treasury)

“Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it.
Boldness has genius, power and magic in it!”    (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

“Demand the Best for Yourself”

“We must be willing to let go of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us.”   (Joseph Campbell)

“The world is moved not only by the mighty shoves of the heroes, but also, by the aggregate of the tiny pushes of each honest worker.”   (Helen Keller)

“At the center of your being
you have the answer;
you know who you are
and you know what you want.”   (Lao Tzu)

“Don’t Just

Don’t just learn, experience.
Don’t just read, absorb.
Don’t just change, transform.
Don’t just relate, advocate.
Don’t just promise, prove.
Don’t just criticize, encourage.
Don’t just think, ponder.
Don’t just take, give.
Don’t just see, feel.
Don’t just dream, do.
Don’t just hear, listen.
Don’t just talk, act.
Don’t just tell, show.
Don’t just exist, live.”   (Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart)

“Live your truth. Express your love. Share your enthusiasm. Take action towards your dreams. Walk your talk. Dance and sing to your music. Embrace your blessings. Make today worth remembering.”   (Steve Maraboli, Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience)

“In essence, if we want to direct our lives, we must take control of our consistent actions. It’s not what we do once in a while that shapes our lives, but what we do consistently.”   (Anthony Robbins)

“Instructions for life:

– ‘Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risk.’

– ‘When you lose, don’t lose the lesson.

– ‘Follow the three R’s:
   1) Respect for self.
   2) Respect for others.
   3) Responsibility for all your actions.’

– ‘Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.’

– ‘Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.’”   (H. Jackson Brown Jr., Life’s Little Instruction Book)

“Nanny’s philosophy of life was to do what seemed like a good idea at the time and do it as hard as possible. It had never let her down.”   (Terry Pratchett, Maskerade)

“Courage to me is doing something daring, no matter how afraid, insecure, intimidated, alone, unworthy, incapable, ridiculed or whatever other paralyzing emotion you might feel. Courage is taking action …. no matter what. So, you’re afraid?  Be afraid.  Be scared silly to the point you’re trembling and nauseous, but do it anyway!”   (Richelle E. Goodrich, Smile Anyway)

“How long are you going to wait before you demand the best for yourself and in no instance bypass the discriminations of reason? You have been given the principles that you ought to endorse, and you have endorsed them. What kind of teacher, then, are you still waiting for in order to refer your self-improvement to him? You are no longer a boy, but a full-grown man. If you are careless and lazy now and keep putting things off and always deferring the day after which you will attend to yourself, you will not notice that you are making no progress, but you will live and die as someone quite ordinary.

From now on, then, resolve to live as a grown-up who is making progress, and make whatever you think best a law that you never set aside. And whenever you encounter anything that is difficult or pleasurable, or highly or lowly regarded, remember that the contest is now: you are at the Olympic Games, you cannot wait any longer, and that your progress is wrecked or preserved by a single day and a single event. That is how Socrates fulfilled himself by attending to nothing except reason in everything he encountered. And you, although you are not yet a Socrates, should live as someone who at least wants to be a Socrates.”   (Epictetus)

“Don’t make me come down there. – God”    (Keith Caserta, Soul Searching)

“We Are What We Think”

“There comes a day when you realize turning the page is the best feeling in the world, because you realize there’s so much more to the book than the page you were stuck on.”   (Zayn Malik)

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

“People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don’t believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they can’t find them, make them.”   (George Bernard Shaw)

“You are the master of your destiny. You can influence, direct and control your own environment. You can make your life what you want it to be.”   (Napoleon Hill, Think and Grow Rich)

“Don’t wait for things to happen. Make them happen.”   (Roy T. Bennett)

“It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.”   (E. E. Cummings)

“Control your own destiny or someone else will.”   (Jack Welch)

“Create your own miracles; do what you think you cannot do.”   (Roy T. Bennett)

“We are what we think.
All that we are arises with our thoughts.
With our thoughts, we make the world.”   (The Buddha)

“You just have to decide if you’re a Tigger or an Eeyore.”   (Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture)