Catalyst Quotes

“Throw Your Heart Over the Wall”

“Warning:  Be careful what you spend your day touching because it will shape your mind, your body and your heart.”    (Sam Keen)

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“He came to a wall so high he feared his tiny horse could not carry him over; but the fairy king said to him, ‘Throw your heart over the wall, then follow it!’  So [the mortal] rode fearlessly at the wall, with his heart already bravely past it, and went safely over it.”     (Laura Ingalls Wilder)

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“We plan our lives according to a dream that came to us in our childhood, and we find that life alters our plans.  And yet, at the end, from a rare height, we also see that our dreams was our fate.”    (Ben Okri)

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“Every day, either you live by priorities or you live by pressures.  There is no other option.  Either you decide what is important in your life, or you let other people decide what is important in your life.”    (Rick Warren)

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“Dreams are really the thoughts that you have hidden in your heart.  When you start a brand new day, let your heart show you the way and make a dream or two come true.” (‘Land of Make Believe’ by Chuck Mangione)

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“Most of the things we think of today as hard, practical and even indispensable were once merely dreams.”    (Carroll)

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“Hold fast to dreams for if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly.”    (Langston Hughes)

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“Do Something”

“Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they’ve been given than to explore the power they have to change it.  Impossible is not a fact.  It’s an opinion.  Impossible is not a declaration.  It’s a dare.  Impossible is potential.  Impossible is temporary.  Impossible is nothing.”     (Muhammed Ali)

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“Do something.  If it doesn’t work, do something else.  No idea is too crazy.”    (Jim Hightower)

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“We all have big changes in our lives that are more or less a second chance.     (Harrison Ford)

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“I’d rather be a could-be if I cannot be an are; because a could-be is a maybe who is reaching for a star.  I’d rather be a has-been than a might-have-been, by far; for a might-have-been has never been, but a has was once an are.”     (Milton Berle)

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“If we don’t change, we don’t grow.  If we don’t grow, we aren’t really living.”     (Gail Sheehy)

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“He is able who thinks he is able.”     (Buddha)

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“Five Frogs on a Log; Do the Impossible”

“As we go about our daily lives, it is important to remember that we always find what we’re looking for.  If you set out today thinking that this is going to be a bad day, shortly things will begin to order themselves to meet your expectation.  Conversely, if you set out with an expectation of greatness, this can be one of the greatest days of your life.”     (Jim Stovall)

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“Someday, in years to come, you will be wrestling with the great temptation, or trembling under the great sorrow of your life.  But the real struggle is here, now, in these quiet weeks. Now it is being decided whether, in the day of your supreme sorrow or temptation, you shall miserably fail or gloriously conquer.  Character cannot be made except by a steady, long continued process.”    (Phillips Brooks)

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“Five frogs are sitting on a log.  Four decide to jump off.  How many are left?  Answer: five. Why?  Because there’s a difference between deciding and doing.”    (Mark L. Feldman & Michael F. Spratt, Five Frogs on a Log)

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“Start by doing what’s necessary, then what’s possible, and suddenly you are doing the impossible.”      (St. Francis of Assisi)

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“Seek first to understand and then to be understood.”    (Stephen R. Covey)

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“Here is a test to find out whether your mission in life is complete.  If you’re alive, it isn’t.”     (Richard Bach)

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“Challenge? Just Do It!”

“As someone who has faced as much disappointment as most people, I’ve come to trust not that events will always unfold exactly as I want, but that I will be fine either way.  I trust that the challenges we face in life are always lessons that serve our soul’s growth.”     (Marianne Williamson)

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“How does a person make a difference?  The history of the world is simply a chronicle of the deeds of a small number of ordinary people who had extraordinary levels of commitment.” (Anthony Robbins)

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“If you get caught up in things over which you have no control, it will adversely affect those things over which you have control.”     (John Wooden)

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“When someone offers you a challenge, don’t think of all the reasons why you can’t do it.  Instead, say, ‘Yes!’  Then figure out how you’ll get it done.”     (Katherine Hudson, W. H. Brady Company)

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“Monuments are a hoax!

A conspiracy designed by bureaucrats and construction companies to draw you away from the important places.  The ones found off the roads, atop the mountains, amidst the rivers, and mostly by chance.

Marked not by placards and statues, but by epiphanous moments that give you the sense that no one, including yourself, may ever find this place again.  These are the places worth seeking out.

And as you pass the landmark-makers putting up their guardrails and snack shops, give a friendly wave. 

And walk on to the place they’ve never been.

Just do it.”     (Nike)

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“Every Day is the Best Day”

“Look to this day.  In it lie all the realities and verities of existence, the bliss of growth, the splendor of action, the glory of power.  For yesterday is but a dream and tomorrow is only a vision.  But today, well-lived, makes every yesterday a dream of happiness and every tomorrow a vision of hope.”     (Sanskrit Proverb)

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“Telling ourselves ‘I deserve’ something rarely allows us to truly receive it, for at our core we all know we are imperfect beings and the ‘I deserve it’ school of thought will rarely fool our sensitive psyches.

On the contrary, it is through gratitude, by saying thank you, that we discover our deservingness.  For in saying thank you we experience ourselves as having received something, and in the receiving we are given a sense of our value.

Saying thank you is the beginning of discovering your own deservingness.”     (365 Days of Love, Daphne Kingma, Conari Press)

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“Be soft in your practice.

Think of the method as a fine silvery steam, not a raging waterfall.

Follow the stream, have faith in its course.

It will go its own way, meandering here, trickling there.

It will find the grooves, the cracks, the crevices.

Just follow it.  Never let it out of your sight.

It will take you.”      (Sheng-Yen)

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“Write in your heart that every day is the best day of the year.”   (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

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“You’ll Move Mountains”

“Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.”      (Confucius)

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“You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one.  I hope someday you’ll join us.  And the world will live as one.”     (John Lennon)

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“There are only two ways to live your life.  One is as though nothing is a miracle.  The other is as though everything is a miracle.”     (Albert Einstein)

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

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“We don’t need a list of rights and wrongs, tables of dos and don’ts:  we need books, time and silence.  ‘Thou shalt not’ is soon forgotten, but ‘Once upon a time last forever.’”    (Philip Pullman)

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“So be sure when you step,

Step with care and great tact.

And remember that life’s A Great Balancing Act.

And will you succeed?  Yes!  You will, indeed!  (98 and ¾ percent guaranteed)

Kid, you’ll move mountains.”     (Dr. Seuss, Oh, The Places You’ll Go!)

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