Old deeds for old people, and new deeds for new. Old people did not know enough once,
perchance, to fetch fresh fuel to keep the fire going; new people put a little dry wood under a pot, and are whirled round the globe with the speed of birds, in a way to kill old people, as the phrase is. Age is no better, hardly so well, qualified for an instructor as youth, for it has not profited so much as it has lost. One may almost doubt if the wisest man has learned anything of absolute value by living. Practically, the old have no very important advice to give the young,
their own experience has been so partial, and their lives have been such miserable failures, for private reasons, as they must believe; and it may be that they have some faith left which belies that experience, and they are only less young than they were. I have lived some thirty years on this planet, and I have yet to hear the first syllable of valuable or even earnest advice from my seniors. They have told me nothing, and probably cannot tell me anything to the purpose. Here is life, an experiment to a great extent untried by me; but it does not avail me that they have tried it. 
If I have any experience which I think valuable, I am sure to reflect that this my Mentors said nothing about. 
-- Henry David Thoreau, "Walking"

But man's capacities have never
been measured; nor are we to judge of what he can do by any precedents, so little has been tried. Whatever have been your failures hitherto, "be not afflicted, my child, for who shall assign to you what you have left undone?" 
-- Henry David Thoreau, "Walking"

"A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity, an optimist sees
the opportunity in every difficulty." 
-- Winston Churchill

"Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you will land among the stars." 
-- Les Brown

"Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they
were to success when they gave up." 
-- Thomas A. Edison

"Remove failure as an option." 
-- Joan Lunden

Dum spiro spero. (While I breathe I hope.)
-- Family motto of Scotland's Lindsay clan

It's hard to make a comeback when you haven't been anywhere. 
--Written in the dust on the back of a bus, Wickenburg, Arizona. 

The first requisite for success is the ability to apply your physical and mental energies to one problem incessantly without growing weary. 
-- Thomas A. Edison 

I have always been delighted at the prospect of a new day, a fresh try, one more start, with perhaps a bit of magic waiting
somewhere behind the morning.
-- J.B. Priestly

"F.E.A.R. = False Evidence Appearing Real" -- Anthony Robbins

"When we seek to discover the best in others, we somehow bring out
the best in ourselves." 
-- William Arthur Ward

"The mind is the limit. As long as the mind can envision the fact that you
can do something, you can do it - as long as you really believe 100
percent". 
-- Arnold Schwarzenegger

"If we take people as we find them, we may make them worse, but if we
treat them as though they are what they should be, we help them to become
what they are capable of becoming." 
-- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"Listening, not imitation, may be the sincerest form of flattery. . . . If
you want to influence someone, listen to what he says. . . . When he
finishes talking, ask him about any points that you do not understand." 
-- Dr. Joyce Brothers

"Do not look back in anger, or forward in fear, but around in awareness."
-- James Thurber

Progress, not perfection
-- Alcoholics anonymous

Suicide is a permanent solution 
to a temporary problem
-- Alcoholics anonymous

You can't think your way 
into a new way of living... 
You have to live your way 
into a new way of thinking
-- Alcoholics anonymous

Acronyms from Alcoholics Anonymous

A.B.C. - Acceptance, Belief, Change

A.C.T.I.O.N. - Any Change Toward Improving One's Nature

B.I.B.L.E. - Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth

D.E.N.I.A.L. - Don't Even Notice I Am Lying

E.G.O. - Edging God Out

F.A.I.L.U.R.E. - Fearful, Arrogant, Insecure, Lonely, Unsure, Resentful, Empty

F.E.A.R. - Face Everything & Recover / Fuck Everything And Run /
False Expectations Appearing Real

F.I.N.E. - Fucked up, Insecure, Neurotic & Emotional

F.U.B.A.R. - Fixed Up (Fucked Up) Beyond All Recognition

G.O.D. - Good Orderly Direction

H.A.L.T. - Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired

H.E.L.P. - Hope, Encouragement, Love, Patience

H.O.W. - Honesty, Open-mindedness, Willingness

S.L.I.P. - Sobriety Lost It's Priority / So Long, I'm Perfect

S.O.B.E.R. - Son Of a Bitch, Everything's Real

T.I.M.E. - Things I Must Earn

I think that amongst young people today, this being the age of instant gratification, everybody wants it now. Young people today stop me all the time and in the space that it takes for the light to turn from red to green as you're standing on the corner, they want me to tell them in 30 seconds what's the key . . . The answer is, there are no shortcuts. You have to do the work, you have to be dedicated and kill yourself practically to get where you want to go . . . No one's going to give you anything. I found out that people who are successful are the ones that are truly in love with their art, the ones who persevere and have that grit. And the people who fall by the wayside are the ones who are in it for the money or want to be famous or what not. 

SPIKE LEE 
 U.S. filmmaker 
(From a commencement address at Emerson College, May 1997) 

THE TEN COMMANDMENTS OF HOW TO GET ALONG WITH PEOPLE 

-- ANN LANDERS 
Syndicated columnist

There are no victories at bargain prices. 
-- DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER (1890-1969) 
34th President of the United States 

SOME TIME AGO, noted research expert Daniel Starch asked a sizable sampling of people what were the most valuable guiding principles in living. Several hundred rules, principles, and maxims were submitted. Some stood out above all the rest: 

-- Leadership periodicals

When you're under pressure to make a decision and you're not sure which way you want to go,
the best answer is "No." 
It's easier to change "No" to "Yes" than it is to change "Yes" to "No." 
-- Unknown

The problems of the world cannot possibly be solved by skeptics or cynics whose horizons are limited by the obvious realities. We
need men who can dream of things that never were. 

-- John F. Kennedy

"Dare to risk public criticism." 
-- Mary Kay Ash

"There is a close connection between
getting up in the world and getting up in
the morning." 

-- Unknown

"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, the way you move.

You may become a Shakespeare, a Michaelangelo, 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

I don't think of myself as a poor, deprived ghetto girl who made good. I think of myself as somebody who from an early age knew I was responsible for myself, and I had to make good. 

-- OPRAH WINFREY 
U.S. television talk-show host 

The line between failure and success is so fine that we scarcely know when we pass it: so fine that we are often on the line and do not know it. 

-- ELBERT HUBBARD (1856-1915) 
American businessman, writer, and painter 

The practice of forgiveness is our most important contribution to the healing of the world. 

-- MARIANNE WILLIAMSON 
American lecturer and writer 

Yesterday is not ours to recover, 
but tomorrow is ours to win or to lose. 

-- LYNDON B. JOHNSON (1908-1973) 
36th U.S. President

I can say, "I am terribly frightened, and fear is terrible and awful, and it makes me uncomfortable, so I won't do that because it's uncomfortable."  Or I could say, "Get used to
being uncomfortable. It is uncomfortable doing something that's risky." But so what? Do you
want to stagnate and just be comfortable? 

-- BARBARA STREISAND 
Entertainer

A good idea will keep you awake during the morning, but a great idea will keep you awake
during the night. 

--MARILYN VOS SAVANT

We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; Perplexed, but not in despair; Persecuted, but not abandoned; Struck down, but not destroyed.

--2 Corinthians 4:8-9

"The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one."

-- George Bernard Shaw

They say a person needs just three things to be truly happy in this world. Someone to love, something to do, and something to hope for.

-- Tom Bodett

The timeless in you is aware of life's timelessness; and knows
that yesterday is but today's memory and tommorrow is today's dream. 
-- Kahlil Gibran

A set back is the opportunity to begin 
again more intelligently.
-- Henry Ford

Never does the human soul appear so strong and noble as when it foregoes revenge and dares to forgive an injury. 
--E. H. Chapin

The depth of darkness to which you can descend and still live is an
exact measure of the height to which you can aspire to reach. 
-- Laurens Van du Post

"The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life.
Attitude, to me is more important than facts. It is more important than
the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures,
than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more
important than appearance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a
company ...a church ...a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice
everyday regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot
change our past ...we cannot change the fact that people will act in a
certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do
is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude ...I am
convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it.
And so it is with you ...we are in charge of our attitudes."

-- Charles Swindoll
American author, pastor

The world is round and the place which may seem like the end, may also be the beginning. 
-- Ivy Baker Priest

"Sweat plus sacrifice equals success." 
-- Charlie Finley

"You have no control over what the other guy does. You only have control
over what you do." 
-- A J Kitt

"There's no substitute for guts." 
-- Paul "Bear" Bryant

"Perhaps the single most important element in mastering the techniques and
tactics of racing is experience. But once you have the fundamentals,
acquiring the experience is a matter of time." 
-- Greg LeMond

"To succeed...You need to find something to hold on to, something to
motivate you, something to inspire you." 
-- Tony Dorsett

"I learned that if you want to make it bad enough, no matter how bad it
is, you can make it." 
-- Gale Sayers 

"The difference between the impossible and the possible lies in a man's
determination." 
-- Tommy Lasorda

A closed mind is a dying mind. 
-- Edna Ferber

Recipe for the perfect parent?

"A heart that never hardens, a temper that never tires, and a touch that never hurts."
-- Charles Dickens,
"Our Mutual Friend", 1864

"We have too many people who live without working, and we have altogether 
too many who work without living."
-- Dean Charles R. Brown

When so rich a harvest is before us, why do we not gather it?
All is in our hands if we will but use it. 
--  Elizabeth Seton

When you get into a tight place where you feel you can't go on, hold on, for that is just the place and the time that the tide will turn. 
-- Harriet Beecher Stowe

All big things in this world are done by people who are naive and have
an idea that is obviously impossible.
-- Dr. Frank Richards

"Let yourself be open and life will be easier.  A spoon of salt in a glass of water makes the water undrinkable.  A spoon of salt in 
a lake is almost unnoticed."
-- Buddha

"To get what you want, 
STOP 
doing what isn't working." 
-- Dennis Weaver

"I was the kind nobody thought could make it. 
I had a funny Boston accent.
I couldn't pronounce my R's. I wasn't a beauty." 
-- Barbara Walters

"Look at a day when you are supremely 
satisfied at the end.
It's not a day
when you lounge around doing nothing; 
it's when you've had everything to
do, and you've done it." 
-- Margaret Thatcher

"The will to win, the desire to succeed, the urge to reach your full
potential... these are the keys that will unlock the door to personal excellence." 
-- Eddie Robinson

The secret of getting ahead is getting started. 
The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into
small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one.
-- Mark Twain

Be the change that you want to see in the world.
-- Gandhi

"The worst things: 
To be in bed and sleep not, 
To want for one who comes not, 
To try to please and please not."
-- Egyptian Proverb

"If you have the will to win, you have achieved half your success; if you
don't, you have achieved half your failure." 
-- David Ambrose

"The greatest good we can do for others is not to share our riches with
them, but to reveal their own." 
-- Author Unknown

"And in the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years" 
- Abraham Lincoln

To every failure, there's an alternative course of action. You just have to find it. When you come to a road block take a detour. 
-- Mary Kay Ash

Originality and the feeling of one's own dignity are achieved only through work and struggle.
-- Fyodor Dostoyevsky

"Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could; some
blunders and absurdities have crept in; forget them as soon as you can.
Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin it serenely and with too high a
spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense." --Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Never let your memories be greater 
than your dreams." 
-- Doug Ivester
(President of Coca Cola)

"Out of suffering comes creativity. You cannot spell painting without pain." 
-- John Lithgow in Third Rock From the Sun

"Talk to every woman as if you loved her, and to every man as if he bored you, and at the end of your first season you will have the reputation 
of possessing the most perfect social tact."
-- Oscar Wilde

"A man's true state of power and riches is to be in himself."
-- Henry Ward Beecher

"Do you want to be power in the world? Then be yourself."
-- Ralph Waldo Trine

"My interest lies in my self-expression -- what's inside of me -- not what I'm in."
-- John Turturro

I can honestly say that I was never affected by the question of success of an undertaking. If I felt it was the right thing to do, I was for it
regardless of the possible outcome.
-- Golda Meir

You are beaten to earth? Well, well, what's that?
Come up with a smiling face.
It's nothing against you to fall down flat,
But to lie there, that's disgrace.