Catalyst Quotes

“Commitment Precedes Vision”

“There is the story of an ambitious young man who, on his twentieth birthday, became consumed with the desire to change the world.   He spent the next 20 years trying to do that but couldn’t.

At age 40, he settled for trying to change his country.   He spent the next 20 years trying to do that but couldn’t.

At age 60, he settled for trying to change his community.   For the next 20 years he strived to do that but failed.

At age 80, he decided to focus on changing his family.   He spent the next 20 years trying to do that but couldn’t.

At age 100, he decided to focus on changing himself.   But the next day, he died.  The lesson?

If you want to change the world, you better start with yourself.   Gandhi said, “We must become the change we want to see in the world”

So the question to ask ourselves is:  ‘In what ways can I become the change I seek to see happening around me?’”        (Source Unknown)

“I used to say, “I sure hope things will change.   Then I learned that the only way things are going to change for me is when I change.”      (Jim Rohn)

“In life, many thoughts are born in the course of a moment, an hour, a day.   Some are dreams, some visions. Often, we are unable to distinguish between them.   To some, they are the same; however, not all dreams are visions.   Much energy is lost in fanciful dreams that never bear fruit.   But visions are messages from the Great Spirit, each for a different purpose in life.   Consequently, one person’s vision may not be that of another.   To have a vision, one must be prepared to receive it, and when it comes, to accept it.   Thus when these inner urges become reality, only then can visions be fulfilled.   The spiritual side of life knows everyone’s heart and who to trust.   How could a vision ever be given to someone to harbor if that person could not be trusted to carry it out.

The message is simple: commitment precedes vision.”     (High Eagle)

“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)

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)