Favorite motivational quotes

In My Humble Opinion
41

“It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”

  • Theodore Roosevelt
42

From the poem “George Gray” in Spoon River Anthology by Edgar Lee Masters:

http://smiley00.tripod.com/poem225.html

43

“You tried and failed miserably, the lesson is, never try…”

-Homer Simpson

“If practice makes perfect, but nobody is perfect, why practice?”

-GD

44

“Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed…every morning a lion wakes up. It knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death. It doesn’t matter whether you are a lion or a gazelle… when the sun comes up, you better be running.”

45

“…Come, my friends,
Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order,
Smite the sounding furrows. For
My purpose holds to sail beyond the sunset,
And the baths of all the western stars
Until I die.”

Ulysses, Alfred Lord Tennyson

46

From what we get, we can make a living; what we give, however, makes a life.
-Arthur Ashe

47

You picked just the right time, Colinmarshall.

More “motivational” posters here.

48

“Mediocre people do exceptional things all the time.” ~OK GO.

“If there’s something you want to do… you should do it!” ~My friend’s dad, the wise John Kirk

“When your passion and your contribution are the same, you have found your purpose.” ~can’t remember the source

49

To succeed, jump as quickly at opportunities as you do at conclusions.

50

A couple of favourites are…

“To succeed in life you need not only initiative, but also finishiative” - Zaida Jones Blaine, in the Chicago Tribune

“I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” - Michael Jordan

But I think this takes some beating…

"What about the main thing in life, all its riddles? If you want, I’ll spell it out for you right now. Do not pursue what is illusory, property and position: all that is gained at the expense of your nerves decade after decade, and is confiscated in one fell night. Live with a steady superiority over life - don’t be afraid of misfortune, and do not yearn after happiness; it is, after all, all the same: the bitter doesn’t last forever, and the sweet never fills the cup to overflowing. It is enough if you don’t freeze in the cold and if thirst and hunger don’t claw at your insides. If your back isn’t broken, if your feet can walk, if both arms can bend, if both eyes see, and if both ears here, then whom should you envy? And why? Our envy of others devours us most of all. Rub your eyes and purify your heart - and prize above all else in the world those who love you and who wish you well. Do not hurt them or scold them, and never part from any of them in anger; after all, you simply do not know: it might be your last act before your arrest, and that will be how you will be imprinted in their memory. " - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn from “The Gulag Archipelago”

51

“Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.” (Sign hanging in Einstein’s office at Princeton)

52

If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at who He gives it to!

No man ever wore a scarf as warm as his daughter’s arm around his neck.

An Irishman has an abiding sense of tragedy which sustains him through temporary periods of joy.

You can accomplish more with a kind word and a shillelagh than you can with just a kind word.

of a gossiper - She has a tongue that would clip a hedge.

Irish Diplomacy - is the ability to tell a man to go to hell so that he looks forward to making the trip.

http://islandireland.com/Pages/folk/sets/sayings.html

53

I love quotes:

if age is grace, i’m an amazing disgrace

The tendency of most people is to be lazy and not pursue their dreams, to let life slip by. That’s why people freak out when they’re 40 and start buying Porsches. That’s pretty indicative of what’s wrong with everything. How can you live your life like that? -Billy Corgan

“You’ve got to have stuff that sucks to have stuff that’s cool.” -Butthead

“To the world you may be one person, but to one person you might just be the world.”

“Sex is the most natural, most beautiful, most wonderful thing that money can buy.” -Steve Martin

“Don’t judge yourself by somebody else’s standards. You will always lose.” -Billy Corgan

“Girls are like slugs. They serve some purpose but it’s hard to imagine what.” -Calvin and Hobbes

“Marriage is a wonderful institution, but who would want to live in an institution?” -H. L. Mencken

Life is just one crushing defeat after another until you just wish Flanders was dead. -Homer Simpson

when you do things right people wont be sure you’ve done anything at all - God(on futurama)

He draws the bow in vain, who has nowhere to point the arrow - Alberti

I mean, sure there are some people that have a goal to work in an office, and bless em, because we need people to do that, but if you want to be an actor or a writer, then channel your most powerful energies to that and don’t fall into the grooves of the day-to-day grind just because it’s easier… -Bob Nanna

One may have a blazing hearth in one’s soul and yet no one ever comes to sit by it. Passersby see only a wisp of smoke rising from the chimney and continue on their way. -Vincent Van Gogh

The tendency of an event to occur varies inversely with one’s preparation for it. - David Searles

History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all other alternatives. Abba Eban

“Jesus loves you, but then again, so does Barney.”

Body Building is all the rage. Join the Marky Mark master race or you won’t get laid. -Jello Biafra

Bickering endlessly over stuff that doesn’t matter is not community. It’s junior high. -JB

“Don’t let it end like this. Tell them I said something.” - Pancho Villa’s last words

“You call what I’ve been doing all my life ‘work’?” he once scoffed. “No way. Mowing the lawn is work. And telling a joke and getting paid for it is stealing.” -Bob Hope

and the kicker:

“Quotation is a serviceable substitute for wit.” - Oscar Wilde

54

“I have spent a lot of time searching through the Bible for loopholes.”

  • W. C. Fields (1880-1946), US comedian. Said during his last illness

“Why are you weeping ? Did you imagine that I was immortal ?”

  • Louis XIV (1638-1715), French king. Noticing as he lay on his deathbed that his attendants were crying

“I owe much; I have nothing; the rest I leave to the poor.”

  • François Rabelais (1483-1553), French satirist

http://www.egreeley.com/messages/244.html

Leonardo da Vinci:
Italian inventor and artist, died in 1519
“I have offended God and mankind because my work did not reach the quality it should have”

Emily Dickinson:
“The fog is rising…”

http://users.belgacom.net/gc674645/grave/lastword.htm