Catalyst Quotes

Compiled by Alex Pena ~ ‘Catalyst’: “to spark, to ignite, energize, mobilize; something that accelerates a reaction (DDI)." Thought-provoking & motivational quotes and stories for you to read, reflect on and move forward in making creative and positive changes in your life.

“Make a Promise or Set a Goal?”

 

“Here are two ways to put ourselves in control of our lives immediately.   We can make a promise – and keep it.   Or we can set a goal – and work to achieve it.   As we make and keep commitments, even small commitments, we begin to establish an inner integrity that gives us the awareness of self-control and the courage and strength to accept more of the responsibility for our own lives.   By making and keeping promises to ourselves and others, little by little, our honor becomes greater than our moods.”     (Stephen R. Covey, Daily Reflections for Highly Effective People)

  

“Courage is not defined by those who fought and did not fall, but by those fought, fell and rose again.”      (Unknown)

 

Weakness fixing might prevent failure, but strength building leads to excellence.   Focus on strength, and manage around weaknesses.”     (Marcus Buckingham), coauthor of First, Break All the Rules and Now, Discover Your Strength)

 

“History has demonstrated that the most notable winners usually encountered heart-breaking obstacles before they triumphed.  They won because they refused to become discouraged by their defeats.”       (B. C. Forbes)

 

“Courage Doesn’t Always Roar”

 

“We’re all afraid of something.  The one fear we must all guard against is the fear of ourselves.  Don’t let the sensation of fear convince you that you’re too weak to have courage.  Fear is the opportunity for courage, not proof of cowardice.   No one is born a coward.   We were meant to love.   And we were meant to have the courage for it.”      (John McCain, U. S. Senator)

  

“The biggest mistake is not taking action.   We fear mistakes and failure more than just about anything.   We fear mistakes to the point where we don’t even begin to make the changes we know we need to make, or give up when we meet resistance long before the goal has been achieved.   And yet, if you’ll allow me to stretch a quote from Buddha just a bit, there are only two mistakes we should fear: not starting and not finishing.   Failure and mistakes are not the problem, of course, it is the fear of them which may keep us from starting a difficult journey or force us to give up even after we mustered up enough courage to at least start.”      (Garr Reynolds)

  

“Do not believe in excuses.   Believe in hard work as the prime solvent of life’s problems.”      (James Cash Penney)

  

“Courage doesn’t always roar.   Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, “I will try again tomorrow”.      (Mary Anne Radmacher)

 

“Delicious Ambiguity”

 

“Tell me what company you keep, and I’ll tell you what you are.”      (Miguel de Cervantes)

  

“If others tell us something we make assumptions, and if they don’t tell us something we make assumptions to fulfill our need to know and to replace the need to communicate.   Even if we hear something and we don’t understand we make assumptions about what it means and then believe the assumptions.   We make all sorts of assumptions because we don’t have the courage to ask questions.”       (Miguel Ruiz,The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom)

  

“I have no right, by anything I do or say, to demean a human being in his own eyes. What matters is not what I think of him; it is what he thinks of himself.  To undermine a man’s self-respect is a sin.”      (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)

  

“I always wanted a happy ending …   Now I’ve learned, the hard way, that some poems don’t rhyme, and some stories don’t have a clear beginning, middle and end.   Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it without knowing what’s going to happen next.   Delicious ambiguity.”      (Gilda Radner)

 

“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)

 

“Milk-Bone Underwear”

Considering it is Friday afternoon, I’m going to try something different.  This Catalyst Quote post will be different from my usual ones.  As we all know, we cannot go through life being serious all the time; there must be some humor.   Aside from music, I believe humor helps us all with our day-to-day activities and according to an Oxford study reported in the New York Times, the physical act of laughing and the muscular exertions “trigger an increase in ‘endorphins’, the brain chemicals known for their feel-good effect.”  

This week has been a rather serious one; so let’s trigger a few endorphins!     ~  GMUniverse

 

“If you really want something in life you have to work for it.   Now quiet, they’re about to announce the lottery numbers.”     (Homer Simpson)

 

“Oh, you hate your job?   Why didn’t you say so?   There’s a support group for that.   It’s called EVERYBODY, and they meet at the bar.      (Drew Carey) 

 

“Without question, the greatest invention in the history of mankind is beer.  Oh, I grant you that the wheel was also a fine invention, but the wheel does not go nearly as well with pizza.”  (Dave Barry)

 

“Sometimes when I reflect back on all the beer I drink I feel ashamed.   Then I look into the glass and think about the workers in the brewery and all of their hopes and dreams.   If I didn’t drink this beer, they might be out of work and their dreams would be shattered.   Then I say to myself, ‘It is better that I drink this beer and let their dreams come true than to be selfish and worry about my liver.'”      (Jack Handy)

 

“Well, it’s a dog-eat-dog world, and I’m wearing Milk-Bone underwear.”    (Norm Peterson in ‘The Peterson Principle’, ‘Cheers’)

 

“If we couldn’t laugh, we would all go insane.”     (Jimmy Buffett)

 

“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)

 

“Gratitude”

“Here’s a thought based on Oprah’s book club:   Sit down at the end of each day and write out 5 things for which you are grateful.

We go through life each day so unaware, and take for granted so many things.   There are those persons, unseen and unknown, to whom we need to be grateful.   We take for granted turning on a light switch.   We assume electricity will light the lamp, but how about the people that keep the system running?   Same for the water, and the supermarket.   We walk in and everyday it’s filled with food.   How did it get on the shelves?   How did it get to the stores?   How did it get out of the fields?   How did it first get planted?

Every day we need to overflow with gratitude.   Looking at life from such a perspective will begin to change our daily attitude towards all life, and, possibly, even towards our self and others.”    (Fr. Brian Cavanaugh, TOR)

  

“I’m utterly convinced that the key to lifelong success is the regular exercise of a single emotional muscle:   ‘gratitude.’     (Geoffrey James)

 

“No one who achieves success does so without acknowledging the help of others.   The wise and confident acknowledge this help with gratitude.”     (Source Unknown)

 

“Daddy – Dad – Father – Grandfather”

 

“A grandfather was walking through his yard when he heard his granddaughter repeating the alphabet in a tone of voice that sounded like a prayer.   He asked her what she was doing.   The little girl explained: ‘I’m praying, but I can’t think of exactly the right words, so I’m just saying all the letters, and God will put them together for me, because He knows what I’m thinking.’”            (Charles B. Vaughan)

 

“When I was seven years old, I ran away from home.   I’d had enough of my father’s rules and decided I could make it on my own, thank you very much.  With my clothes in a paper bag, I stormed out the back gate and marched down the alley.   Like the prodigal son, I decided I needed no father.   Unlike the prodigal son, I didn’t go far.   I got to the end of the alley and remembered I was hungry, so I went back home.”    (Excerpt From: “Life to the Max” by Max Lucado)

  

There are 3 stages in a man’s life:   ‘My Daddy can whip your Daddy.’   ‘Aw, Dad, you don’t know anything.’   ‘My father used to say . . .’.      (Dwight McSmith)

 

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