Quotes

People are unreasonable, illogical and self-centered.
Love them anyway.

If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives.
Do good anyway.

If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies.
Succeed anyway.

The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow. 
Do good anyway.

Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable. 
Be honest and frank anyway.

The biggest person with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest person with the smallest mind. 
Think big anyway.

What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.
Build anyway.

People really need help but may attack if you help them. 
Help people anyway.

Give the world the best you have and you might get kicked in the teeth. 
Give the world the best you've got anyway. 

Mother Teresa
Catholic Nun, Missionary

When you were born, you cried and the world rejoiced.  Live your life so that when you die, the world cries and you rejoice.
Cherokee Expression

To live content with small means; to seek elegance rather than luxury; and refinement rather than fashion; to be worthy, not respectable; and wealthy, not rich; to study hard, think quietly, talk gently, act frankly; to listen to stars and birds, to babes and sages, with open heart; to bear all cheerfully, do all bravely, await occasion, hurry never; in a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious grow up through the common. This is to be my symphony."

William Henry Channing

"There are only two ways to live your life. 
One is as though nothing is a miracle. 
The other is as if everything is."  

Albert Einstein

I will permit no man to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him.

Booker T. Washington
African American Educator 

"Each second we live is a new and unique moment of the universe, a moment that will never be again and what do we teach our children? We teach them that two and two make four and that Paris is the capital of France. When will we also teach them what they are? We should say to each of them: Do you know what you are? You are a marvel. You are unique. In all the years that have passed, there has never been another child like you. Your legs, your arms, your clever fingers, and the way you move. You may become a Shakespeare, a Michelangelo, or a Beethoven. You have the capacity for anything. Yes, you are a marvel. And when you grow up, can you then harm another who is, like you, a marvel? You must work; we must all work, to make the world worthy of its children."

Pablo Casals (1876-1973)
Spanish Cellist

There can be hope only for a society, which acts as one big family, not as many separate ones.

Anwar Sadat
Egyptian President 

One hundred percent of the shots you don't take. don't go in. 

Wayne Gretzky
Canadian Ice Hockey Player

"When you plant lettuce, if it does not grow well, you don't blame the lettuce.  You look for reasons it is not doing well.  It may need fertilizer, or more water, or less sun.  You never blame the lettuce. Yet if we have problems with our friends or family, we blame the other person. But if we know how to take care of them, they will grow well, like the lettuce.  Blaming has no positive effect at all, nor does trying to persuade using reason and argument. That is my experience.  No blame, no reasoning, no argument, just understanding. If you understand, and you show that you understand, you can love, and the situation will change."

Thich Nhat Hanh
Vietnamese Zen Master and Spiritual Leader

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us. 

Oliver Wendell Holmes
American Author and Physician

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light not our darkness that frightens us. We ask ourselves 'who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?'

Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; its in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

Marianne Williamson
From her book Return To Love