FAMOUS WISE REMARKS - Quotation archive

July 2010

1. "Don’t be afraid to take a big step if one is indicated. You can’t cross a chasm in two small jumps." - David Lloyd George (1863-1945); Prime Minister of Great Britain
2. "If you really want to do something, you’ll find a way; if you don’t, you’ll find an excuse."
3. "Losers quit when they are tired. Winners quit when they have won."
4. "There is no scarcity of opportunity to make a living at what you love; there’s only a scarcity of resolve to make it happen." - Wayne Dyer; Psychotherapist and writer
5. "The gem cannot be polished without friction, nor man perfected without trials." – Confucius (551-479 B.C.); Philosopher
6. "Try not. Do, or do not. There is no try."- Yoda, Jedi Master, from Star Wars
7. "The history books are full of stories of gifted persons whose talents were overlooked by a procession of people until someone believed in them. Albert Einstein was four years old before he could speak and seven before he could read. Isaac Newton did poorly in grade school. A newspaper editor fired Walt Disney because he had “no good ideas.” Werner von Braun failed ninth-grade algebra. Haydn gave up on making a musician of Beethoven, who seemed a slow and plodding man with no apparent talent. There is a lesson in such stories: Different people develop at different rates, and the best motivators are always on the lookout for hidden capacities."– Alan McGinnis; Bring Out The Best In People
8. "The supreme accomplishment is to blur the line between work and play." – Arnold Toybee (1889-1975); Historian
9. "The pessimist may be right in the long run, but the optimist has a better time during the trip."
10. "What an author likes to write most is his signature on the back of a check." - Brendan Francis

June 2010

1. "Victories often occur after you see no way to succeed but refuse to give up anyway." - Dave Weinbaum
2. "I do not live to play, but I play in order that I may live, and return with greater zest to the labors of life." - Plato
3. "Find your passion and make it your profession ... and you'll never work again." - Janice Rockett
4. "I'm convinced that most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be." - Abraham Lincoln
5. "Words are sacred. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little." - Tom Stoppard, British playwright
6. "You do not HAVE to be angry just because you have the right to be angry."- Phillip C. McCraw in Life Strategies.
7. "If you hear a voice within you saying "you are not a painter," then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced. Vincent Van Gogh
8. "Statistically, 100% of the shots you don’t take don’t go in." – Wayne Gretsky
9. "Chop your own wood, and it will warm you twice."- Henry Ford
10. "Honk if you love peace and quiet " – sign outside a church in Scarsdale

May 2010

1. "There are only two ways to live your life – one is as if everything is a miracle, the other is as though nothing is a miracle." - Albert Einstein
2. "It isn’t hard to be good from time to time in sports. What’s tough is being good every day." - Willie Mays
3. "Go out on a limb – that is where the fruit is." - Will Rogers
4. "The greatest waste of money is to keep it." - Jackie Gleason
5. "It’s not the load that breaks you down, it’s the way you carry it." - Lena Horne
6. "And the day came when the risk it took to remain tight in a bud was more painful then the risk it took to blossom." - Anais Nin
7. "I've always said slower is faster, whether you're trying to come back from an injury or start a ballet company. To succeed you must take deliberate steps with no shortcuts." - Edward Villella
8. "To Succeed you don't have to stay up nights... you have to stay awake days!
9. "Talent is extremely common. What is rare is the willingness to endure the life of a writer." - Kurt Vonnegut
10. "We cannot close our ears; we have no ear lids!" - R. Murray Schafer - Composer

April 2010

1. "Whether you think you can or your think you can’t, you’re right." – Henry Ford
2. "To run a marathon, you must have legs... to win a marathon you must have heart." - Dave Weinbaum
3. "The Americans had declared their political independence before it was a reality-not after, and what they did in the matter of financial competence was much the same."
4.  "Hire attitude. Other skills you can train. Ensure that each employee understands the company's vision and mission and his or her role in achieving it." - Dave Sharkey, Pres.& COO, Electric Lightwave, Inc.
5. "A problem is your chance to do your best.- Duke Ellington
6. "Men fail because they quit too soon. If more of us would strike out and attempt the "impossible", we very soon would find the truth of that old saw that nothing is impossible... Abolish fear and you can accomplish anything you wish." - C.E. Welch
7. "A Setback is a Setup for a Comeback." - Willie Jolley
8. "If you don't have a vision for the future, then your future is threatened to be a repeat of the past." - A.R. Bernard
9. "A clever person turns great troubles into little ones and little ones into none at all." - Chinese Proverb
10. "In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing. The worst thing you can do is nothing." - Theodore Roosevelt

March 2010

1. “If you want to ‘walk the talk’ you have to take the steps.” - Jonathan Flaks, 2000 (Happy Birthday, Jon In harmony, - Webmaster!)
2. "The thing always happens that you really believe in: and the belief in a thing makes it happen." - Frank Lloyd Wright.
3. "Love is the only thing you get more of by giving it away." - Tom Wilson
4. "Greatness comes with recognizing that your potential is limited only by how you choose, how you use your freedom, how resolute you are, how persistent you are -- in short, by your attitude." - Peter Koestenbaum, Philosopher, quoted in FAST COMPANY magazine.
5. "All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing." Edmund Burke
6. "It is our duty to proceed as though the limits of our abilities do not exist." - Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
7. "There is a big difference between what we have the right to do and what is right to do." - Justice Potter Stuart
8. "If you want to be successful, it's just this simple: Know what you're doing. Love what you're doing. And believe in what you're doing." - Will Rogers
9. "Life loves to be taken by the lapel and told, "I am with you kid. Let's go."" - Maya Angelou
10. "Don't sweat the petty things and don't pet the sweaty things." - George Carlin

February 2010

1. "The most important thing in the world is that you make yourself the greatest, grandest, most wonderful, loving person in the world because this is what you are going to be giving to your children." - Leo Buscaglia (1893-1953), Tennis player
2. "There's harmony and inner peace to be found in following a moral compass that points in the same direction, regardless of fashion or trend." - Ted Koppel, television journalist
3. "The great secret of success is that there are no secrets of success; there are only timeless principles that have proven effective throughout the centuries." - Brian Tracy
4. "The very least you can do in your life is to figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance, but live right in it, under its roof." - Barbara Kingsolver, Writer
5. "Fear is your best friend or your worst enemy. It's like fire. If you can control it, it can cook for you; it can heat your house. If you can't control it, it will burn everything around you and destroy you." - Cus D'Amato (1908-1985), Boxing trainer
6. "All I try to do is write music that feels meaningful to me, that has commitment and passion behind it. If what I'm writing about is real, and if there's emotion, then, hey, there'll be somebody who wants to hear it." - Bruce Springsteen
7. "The First Rule of Happiness: Don't seek happiness--create it!" - Rob Gilbert
8. "People and rubber bands have one thing in common: they must be stretched to be effective." - John Maxwell, Writer
9. "Most people work just hard enough not to get fired and get paid just enough money not to quit." - George Carlin Comedian
10. "Most of us would rather risk catastrophe than read the directions." - Mignon McLaughlin Writer

January 2010

1. "As long as we are persistent in our pursuit of our deepest destiny, we will continue to grow. We cannot choose the day or time when we will fully bloom. It happens in its own time." - Denis Waitley
2. "Running a company is like jazz because of the changing environment and changing people. I'd never say it at a business meeting, but that's what you're doing -- you're jamming." - Jerry Fiddler, co-founder of Wind River Systems
3. "No one can make you feel inferior without your permission." - Eleanor Roosevelt
4. "Practice the philosophy of continuous improvement. Get a little bit better every single day." - Brian Tracy
5. "One important key to success is self-confidence. An important key to self-confidence is preparation." - Arthur Ashe
6. "Never think that you're not good enough yourself. A man should never think that. People will take you very much at your own reckoning." - Anthony Trollope
7. "Vision is the art of seeing the invisible." - Jonathan Swift
8. "The most influential person who will talk to you all day is you, so you should be very careful about what you say to you!" - Zig Ziglar
9. "I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been." - Wayne Gretzky
10. "Never let your memories be greater than your dreams." - Doug Ivester

December 2009

1. “I wonder why it is that we are not all kinder to each other than we are. How much the world needs it! How easily it is done!” - Henry Drummond (1851-1897) Cleric and writer
2. “I'm a great believer in luck and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it.” – Thomas Jefferson
3. “Don't be afraid to take a big step if one is indicated. You can't cross a chasm in two small jumps” - David Lloyd George (1863-1945) British Prime Minister
4. “Imagine all the people living life in peace. You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one. I hope someday you'll join us, and the world will live as one.” - John Lennon
5. “ Life can always been seen as perfect... whatever IS working in your life right now is perfect because it's working...and whatever IS NOT working in your life right now is perfect because it is pointing.” – Jonathan Flaks
6. “Success is a little like wrestling a gorilla - you don't quit when you are tired, you quit when the gorilla is tired.”- Robert Strauss
7. “On the wall of my room when I was in rehab was a picture of the space shuttle blasting off, autographed by every astronaut now at NASA. On the top of the picture it says, ‘We found nothing is impossible.' That should be our motto.” - Christopher Reeve, Actor
8. “Our problems are man-made, therefore they may be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings.” - John F. Kennedy
9. “Unfortunately, many people do not consider fun an important item on their daily agenda. For me, that was always a high priority in whatever I was doing.” - Chuck Yeager, Aviator
10. “He was a bold man who first ate an oyster.” - Jonathan Swift (1667-1745)

November 2009

1. “At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.” – Albert Schweitzer
2. “I really don't believe that Jim Henson could have been such an extraordinary creator if he hadn't been such an extraordinary appreciator…” - cited in Remembrances and Celebrations; Pantheon Books
3. “The greater part of our happiness or misery depends on our dispositions, and not on our circumstances. We carry the seeds of the one or the other with us in our minds wherever we go.” - Martha Washington (1732-1802)
4. “You aren't your experiences. You are what you make of them.” - Deborah Bell, Ed.D, Boston University
5. “The measure of success is not whether you have a tough problem to deal with, but whether it is the same problem you had last year.” - John Foster Dulles, Former Secretary of State
6. “I am an optimist. It does not seem to be too much use being anything else.” -Winston Churchill
7. “Amateurs practice until they can get it right; professionals practice until they can't get it wrong.”-- Maxwell - educator and writer
8. “If you aspire to the highest place it is no disgrace to stop at the second or even the third.” - Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BC)
9. “If you want to ‘walk the talk', you have to take the steps.” -Jonathan Flaks
10. “As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.” – John F. Kennedy

October 2009

1. “Roadblocks aren't barriers-they open your eyes to other routes.” -Joyce Restaino (Writer)
2. “Doubt your doubts." -Joe Batten Writer and speaker
3. “One word frees us from all of the weight and pain of life; that word is love.” – Sophocles (c.496-405 B.C.) Playwright
4. “John Wayne's First Rule: Courage is being scared to death and saddling up anyway."
5. “The creative act is to let down the net of human imagination into the ocean of chaos on which we are suspended and then to attempt to bring out of it ideas.” –
6. Terence McKenna in Trialogues at the Edge of the West
7. “Necessity is not a fact, it is an interpretation.” – Friedrich Nietzsche
8. “Most plans are organized and communicated according to marketplace logic. But people don't listen for marketplace logic; they listen for meaning and purpose.... The role of a leader is to create an experience that will inspire people to take action.” - Bill Jensen, author & consultant, quoted in FAST COMPANY magazine.
9. “Failure only exists when a person does not try, does not learn and does not care.”– J Flaks 1995
10. “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” - Yogi Berra

September 2009

1. “I'm not confused, I'm just well-mixed.” - Robert Frost (1874-1963)
2. “The bad news is time flies. The good news is you're the pilot.” – Michael Altshuler
3. “Look at your choices, pick the best one, then go to work with all your heart.” -Pat Riley(Pro Basketball Coach)
4. “I believe the single most significant decision I can make on a day-to-day basis is my choice of attitude... When my attitudes are right there's no challenge too great for me.” -Charles R. Swindoll
5. “I am looking forward to looking back on all this” - Sandra Knell
6. “While we try to teach our children all about life, our children teach us what life is all about.” -Angela Schwindt (Street Performer)
7. “A professional writer is an amateur who didn't quit.” -Richard Bach, Writer
8. “The value of an idea lies in the using of it.” -Thomas Edison
9. “Winning can be defined as the science of being totally prepared.” – George Allen (1922-1990) Pro Football Coach
10. “We didn't lose the game, we just ran out of time. – Vince Lombardi (1913-1965)

August 2009

1. “All the fun is locking horns with impossibilities.” – Claes Oldenburg, Artist
2. “Many people miss their share of happiness, not because they never found it, but because they didn't stop to enjoy it.” -William Feather (1889-1981), Writer
3. “Many persons have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.” – Helen Keller
4. “It's only when we truly know and understand that we have limited time on earth-that we have no way of knowing when our time is up-that we will begin to live each day to the fullest, as if it were the only one we had.” - Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, Physician and writer
5. “I'm a pessimist about probabilities; I'm an optimist about possibilities.” – Lewis Mumford (1895-1990), writer
6. “In every community, there is work to be done. In every nation, there are wounds to heal. In every heart, there is the power to do it.” – Marianne Williamson, Writer
7. “The greatest revolution of our generation is the discovery that human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds, can change the outer aspects of their lives.” – William James (1842-1910), Psychologist, philosopher, and writer
8. “It's incredibly easy to get caught up in an activity trap, in the business of life, to work harder and harder at climbing the ladder of success only to discover it's leaning against the wrong wall.” – Stephen R. Covey, writer
9. “You'll never have all the information you need to make a decision. If you did, it would be a foregone conclusion, not a decision.” – David Mahoney
10. “Don't worry about the world coming to an end today. It's already tomorrow in Australia.” - Charles Schultz (1922-2000)

July 2009

1. “If you observe a really happy man, you will find him building a boat, writing a symphony, educating his son, growing double dahlias, or looking for dinosaur eggs in the Gobi Desert. He will not be searching for happiness as if it were a collar button that had rolled under the radiator, striving for it as the goal itself. He will have become aware that he is happy in the course of living life 24 crowded hours of each day.” – W. Beran Wolfe; Writer
2. “I am careful not to confuse excellence with perfection. Excellence I can reach for; perfection is God's business.” - Michael J. Fox
3. “Great successes are built by taking on your negatives and turning them around.” – Sumner Redstone, CEO, Viacom, Inc.
4. “Character is revealed by how we behave when we are sure we won't be found out.” – Thomas Babington Macanlan
5. “In a world that is constantly changing, there is no one subject or set of subjects that will serve you for the foreseeable future, let alone the rest of your life. The most important skill to acquire now is learning how to learn.” - John Naisbitt; Futurist
6. “Perhaps all the dragons of our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us at once beautiful and brave.”-- Rainer Maria Rilke
7. “You don't have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.” - Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968),
8. “There is nothing wrong with men possessing riches. The wrong comes when riches possess men.” - Billy Graham
9. “There is no fun in guaranteed success.” - Dave Weinbaum
10. “In dieting, the best way to watch calories is from a distance.” – Laurence J. Peter; Peter's Almanac,

June 2009

1. “The only real training for leadership is leadership”. - Anthony Jay
2. “You write a hit the same way you write a flop.” – Alan Jay Lerner (1918-1986)
3. “The one thing I know for sure - you can never be absolutely sure of anything.” - Joyce Restaino, writer
4. “The liar's punishment is not in the least that he is not believed, but that he cannot believe anyone else.” - George Bernard Shaw
5. “Live to learn and you will learn to live.” – Portuguese Proverb
6. “Most people see what is, and never see what can be.” - Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
7. “Every good idea and all creative work are the offspring of the imagination, and have their source in what one is pleased to call infantile fantasy. The dynamic principle of fantasy is play, a characteristic principle of serious work. But without this playing with fantasy, no creative work has ever yet come to birth.” –C.G. Jung, Author of Psychological Types
8. “The worst words you ever write are better than the best words you never write.”
9. “The role of the writer is not to say what we can all say, but what we are unable to say.” -- Anais Nin
10. “It's amazing how long it takes to complete something you're not working on.”- R.D. Clyde

May 2009

1. “What can you do to promote world peace? Go home and love your family.” -Mother Teresa, upon receiving the Nobel Peace Prize.
2. “I handle the notes no better than many others, but the pauses-ah! That is where the art resides.” - renowned pianist, Arthur Rubinstein
3. “Grace has been defined as the outward expression of the inward harmony of the soul". - William Hazlit
4. “Men are all alike in their promises. It is only in their deeds that they differ.” – Moliére
5. “Second thoughts have aborted more dreams than all the difficult circumstances, overwhelming obstacles, and dangerous detours fate ever could throw at you. Undermining your authenticity by succumbing to someone else's second thoughts is a sinister, subtle, and seductive form of self-abuse. - Sarah Ban Breathnach
6. “Never make a permanent decision based on a temporary storm. No matter how raging the billows are today, remind yourself: ”This too shall pass!”' – T.D. Jakes, Clergyman
7. “It's hard to beat a person who never gives up.”- Babe Ruth
8. “Exercise does not take time out of your life; it puts life into your time. Linda Maxwell”- educator and writer
9. “I will love the light for it shows me the way, Yet I will endure the darkness for it shows me the stars.” - Og Mandino
10. “If you try to fail, and succeed, which have you done?” - George Carlin

April 2009

1. “Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it.” –Confucius
2. “There are risks and costs to action. But they are far less than the long-range risks of comfortable inaction.” – John F. Kennedy
3. “Perhaps everything terrible is in its deepest being is something helpless that wants help from us.” -Rainer Maria Rilke
4. “There's nothing harder to stop than somebody who wants to believe a miracle.” -Leslie Ford
5. “The freedom to fail is vital if you're going to succeed. Most successful people fail time and time again, and it is a measure of their strength that failure merely propels them into some new attempt at success.” -Michael Korda, Business executive and writer
6. “It's not whether you get knocked down. It's whether you get up again.” -Vince Lombardi
7. “Creativity lies in the discovery of unsuspected links.” –Margaret Frings Keyes, Author of Inward Journey, Art as Therapy
8. “It's not by doing the things we like, but by liking the things we do that we can discover life's blessings.” -Goethe (1749-1832), writer
9. “Until you value yourself, you won't value your time. Until you value your time, you will not do anything with it.” – M. Scott Peck, Psychiatrist and writer.
10. “Sometimes the road less traveled is less traveled for a reason.” –Jerry Seinfeld

March 2009

1. “Paths clear before those who know where they're going and are determined to get there.” –Leonard R. Frank, editor and writer.
2. “Enthusiasm finds the opportunities, and energy makes the most of them.” – Henry S. Haskins, Writer
3. “Success is the intersection where dreams and hard work meet.”–Lynn Goldblatt
4. “Professor Oswald Avery worked for many years in a small laboratory at the hospital of the Rockefeller Institute in New York City. Many of his experimental predictions turned out wrong, but that never discouraged him. He capitalized on error. His colleagues remember him saying, “Whenever you fall, pick something up.”' --Clifton Fadiman, in The Little, Brown Book of Anecdotes
5. “There are two things to aim at in life: first, to get what you want; and, after that, to enjoy it. Only the wisest of mankind achieve the second.” –Logan Pearsall Smith, writer
6. “The way to get one good idea is to get a lot of ideas.”–Jonas Salk
7. “The mind aware of itself is a pilot. Anything that draws us into a mindful, watchful state has the power to transform.”–Marion Ferguson, Author of The Aquarian Conspiracy
8. “We can choose to make our love for each other what our lives are really about.” -Werner Erhard
9. “This world is your world. Take it easy, but take it.” –Woody Guthrie, musician
10. “All the inspiration I ever needed came from a phone call from a producer.” – Cole Porter (1891-1964), Composer

February 2009

1. “I love the challenge of starting at zero every day and seeing how much I can accomplish.”–Martha Stewart
2. “It is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers.” -James Thurber
3. “In matters of style swim with the current; in matters of principle stand like a rock.” –Thomas Jefferson
4. “As you go the way of life you will see a great chasm. Jump. It is not as wide as you think.” –Native American proverb
5. “We are our choices.” –Jean-Paul Sartre, philosopher and writer
6. “The only difference between adults and children is the size of the sandbox.” –Evan B. Welch
7. “Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps; for he is the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are and what they ought to be.” –William Hazlitt, essayist
8. “Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired, and success achieved.” –Helen Keller
9. “Each destination you reach only opens out into wider horizons, new and undiscovered countries for you to explore.” --Barbara Sher with Annie Gottlieb
10. “If you're lost in the woods, start playing solitaire with a deck of cards. Someone will eventually show up and tell you to put the red jack on the black queen.”

January 2009

1. “If you create from the heart, nearly everything works; if from the head, almost nothing.” –Marc Chagall, artist
2. “We sing from the right side of the brain, talk from the left.”
3. “If you woke up this morning, it's time to celebrate!”--Joe Takash
4. “The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.” –Arthur Clarke, science fiction writer
5. “It is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers.” -James Thurber
6. “In matters of style swim with the current; in matters of principle stand like a rock.” –Thomas Jefferson
7. “Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps; for he is the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are and what they ought to be.” –William Hazlitt, essayist
8. “We are our choices.” –Jean-Paul Sartre, philosopher and writer
9. “Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired, and success achieved.” –Helen Keller
10. “Exhilaration is that feeling you get just after a great idea hits you, and just before you realize what's wrong with it.” –James Liter

December 2008

1. “A first-time novelist sends out his manuscript and gets 121 rejections. Sending it out one more time, Robert M. Pirsig gets his first 'yes', and 'Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance' goes on to sell more than three million copies.” –Joel Saltzman, in 'If You Can Talk, You Can Write'
2. “Let a series of happy thoughts run through your mind. They will show on your face.” –Norman Vincent Peale, pastor and author
3. “The secret of joy in work is contained in one word – excellence. To know how to do something well is to enjoy it.” –Pearl S. Buck, writer
4. “You are a success when you have made friends with your past, are focused on the present, and are optimistic about your future.” –Zig Ziglar, motivational speaker and writer
5. “One thought driven home is better than three left on base.” --James Liter
6. “Our fears are always more numerous than our dangers.” –Seneca (c.4 BC-c.65 AD), philosopher and statesman
7. “The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.” –Albert Einstein
8. “Over the years I have discovered that ideas come through an intense desire for them; continually desiring, the mind becomes a watchtower on the lookout for incidents that may excite the imagination.” --Charlie Chaplin
9. “Most people search high and wide for the keys to success. If they only knew, the key to their dreams lies within.” –George Washington Carver, botanist and scientist
10. “Half our life is spent trying to find something to do with the time we have rushed through life trying to save.”–Will Rogers, humorist

November 2008

1. “Only those who risk going too far will ever know how far they can go.” - - Anon
2. “Never let the word “impossible” stop you from pursuing what your heart and spirit urge you to do. Impossible things come true every day.” - - Robert K. Cooper, Speaker and writer
3. “Unfortunate events, though potentially a source of anger and despair, have equal potential to be a source of spiritual growth. Whether or not this is the outcome depends on our response.” – the Dalai Lama
4. “One person with a belief in a social power equal to ninety-nine who have only interests.” - - John Stuart Mill (1806-1873), Philosopher and Economist
5. “Some think it's holding on that makes one strong; sometimes it's letting go.” - Sylvia Robinson
6. “It is important to think of the best friend anyone could ever have, and then be that friend to yourself, too.” –Mary Jo Castelli.
7. “You get married not to be happy but to make each other happy.” –Roy L. Smith
8. “Just as the hand, held before the eye, can hide the tallest mountain, so the routine of everyday life can keep us from seeing the vast radiance and the secret wonders that fill the world.” –18th century Chasidic saying.
9. “The greater part of happiness or misery depends on our dispositions, and not on our circumstances. We carry the seeds of the one or the other about with us in our minds wherever we go.” –Martha Washington
10. “Bright ideas are commonsense notions that just seem to have eluded the notice of everyone else.” - - Harry Shearer, Humorist

October 2008

1. "You may be disappointed if you fail, but you will be doomed if you don't try." - - Beverly Sills"
2. "One of the secrets of life is to make stepping-stones out of stumbling blocks." - - Jack Penn
3. "There can be no happiness if the things we believe in are different from the things we do." - - Freya Madeline Stark (1893-1993), Writer
4. "Character is doing what's right when nobody's looking." - J.C. Watts, Jr., U.S. Congress member
5. "Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that." - - Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
6. "A problem well stated is a problem half solved."- - Charles F. Kettering, Inventor
7. "Indecision if the thief of opportunity." - - Jim Rohn, Motivational Speaker
8. "If you write a hundred stories and they're all bad, that doesn't mean you've failed. You fail only if you stop writing."-- Ray Bradbury
9. "A lot of growing up takes place between 'It fell' and 'I dropped it.'"
10. "Change is inevitable except from a vending machine."

September 2008

1. "Service is the sweet perfume of human goodness, which you cannot pour upon another without getting a few drops on yourself. The greatest rewards of service are of self-satisfaction, but often more practical and material rewards follow." - Edward L. Freidman
2. “The one thing that doesn't go away in a company is the character and humanity of its leader.... that person has to be the best listener, the best interpreter, and the most passionate driver of the company's purpose." - Mary Lou Quinlan, vice chairman of the McManus Group, in FAST COMPANY magazine
3. “You can learn little from victory. You can learn everything from defeat.” – Christy Mathewson, Hall of Fame baseball player
4. “You can make more friends in a month by being interested in them than in ten years trying to get them interested in you.” - - Charles L. Allen, Roads to Radiant Living
5. “It has never mattered to me that 30 million people might think “I'm wrong.” The number of people who thought Hitler was “right” did not make him “right.” The same principle should be applied to anyone who has an individualistic attitude. Why do you necessarily have to be wrong just because a few million people think you are?” --Frank Zappa, musician
6. “Unable are the Loved to die. For love is immortality.” – Emily Dickinson
7. “Failure is the opportunity to begin again, more intelligently.”--Henry Ford
8. “Everywhere is within walking distance if you have the time.”– Steven Wright, comedian
9. “Measure wealth not by the things you have, but by the thing you have for which you would not take money.”
10. “You're never too old be become younger.” – Mae West, actor and writer

August 2008

1. "Strong hope is a much greater stimulant of life than any single realized joy could be." - Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900), Philosopher
2. For the most part, fear is nothing but an illusion. When you share it with someone else, it tends to disappear." – Marilyn C. Barrick, Psychologist and Writer
3. "Laziness may appear attractive, but work gives satisfaction." – Anne Frank, diarist
4. "It's no use saying, “We are doing our best.” You have got to succeed in doing what is necessary." – Winston Churchill, British Prime Minister
5. "When things go wrong, remember this…Champions expect pain." – Keith Ziegenbein
6. "Courage is very important. Like a muscle, it is strengthened by use." – Ruth Gordon, actress
7. "Be different – if you don't have the facts and knowledge required, simply listen. When word gets around that you can listen when others tend to talk, you will be treated as a sage." - Ed Koch, former NYC mayor
8. “I play John Wayne in every picture regardless of the character, and I've been doing all right, haven't I?" - John Wayne, actor.
9. "The harder you chase something, the faster you go -- and the less you're able to let life meet life. If you're having difficulty coming up with new ideas, then slow down ... Creativity exists in the present moment. You can't find it anywhere else." - Natalie Goldberg, author
10. “When I was five years old, the first skating lesson I learned was: how to fall. My instructor was wise. He knew that until I learned how to fall, I couldn't learn how not to fall. You see? Your mistakes will be your best friends if you let them teach you.” -Michelle Kwan

July 2008

1. "You are not stuck where you are unless you decide to be." - Wayne W. Dyer, motivational writer
2. "I merely took the energy it takes to pout and wrote some blues." - Duke Ellington (1899-1974), Musician and Composer
3. "Making fools out of ourselves can be essential to success. Only by risking ridicule can we come out from under the covers of conventional wisdom." - R.C. Cole, Author of Sympathetic Vibrations
4. "Fear of failure and fear of the unknown are always defeated by faith. Having faith in yourself, in the process of change, and in the new direction that change sets will reveal your own inner core of steel." - Georgette Mosbacher, business executive
5. "Every writer finds a new entrance into the mystery, and it is difficult to explain." - Lu Chi, Chinese poet (AD 261)
6. "If my doctor told me I only had six months to live, I wouldn't brood. I'd type faster." - Isaac Asimov (1920-1992), Writer and Scientist
7. "Misfortunes always come in by a door that has been left open for them." - Czech Proverb
8. "The past and the future are great places to visit, but you don't want to live there." – Tom Payne, “Quotes for a Changing Workplace,” Performance Press of Albuquerque
9. "The most important lesson you can learn from winning is that you can." – Dave Weinbaum
10. “Even on the most exalted throne in the world we are only sitting on our own bottom." - Michel de Montaigne (1533 - 1592). "

June 2008

1. "Only speak when your words are better than your silence." - Arabic Proverb
2. "Experience is not what happens to you; it is what you do with what happens to you." -Aldous Huxley, writer
3. “Today's trying times in about twenty years will have become, 'The good old days.' " -Bernard Maltzer, in Guide for Living
4. “Success is getting what you want; happiness is wanting what you get." – Anonymous
5. "Everybody wants to save the earth - nobody wants to help Mom do the dishes." -P.J. O'Rourke
6. "Nature does demand that we be perfect. It only requires that we grow." - Josh Liebman (1907-1948), Rabbi and author
7. "Waste of time is the most extravagant of all expense." - Theophrastus (c.372-287 b.c.), Philosopher
8. "I write when I'm inspired, and I see to it that I'm inspired at nine o'clock every morning." – Peter De Vries, writer (1910-1993)
9. "Honk if you love peace and quiet." – sign outside a church in Scarsdale, NY.
10. "Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle." – Plato

May 2008

1. "I have found myself to begin writing when I've been utterly exhausted, when I've felt my soul as thin as a playing card…and somehow the activity of writing changes everything." - Joyce Carol Oates, writer and educator.
2. "Whatever you do, if you do it sincerely, will eventually become the bridge to your wholeness." - C.G. Jung.
3. "A person has not failed if he has tried hard, learned something, grown and is willing to try again from a different perspective." - J. Flaks 2000
4. “I was reading the dictionary the other day. I thought it was a poem about everything." - Steven Wright
5. "I suppose I made it look easy, but gee whiz, did I work and worry." -Fred Astaire
6. "Behind the cloud, the sun is still shining." - Abraham Lincoln
7. "Defeat is not the worst of failures. Not to have tried is the true failure." -George Woodberry, writer and critic
8. "Teachers open the door, but you must enter by yourself." -Chinese proverb
9. "Never ruin an apology with an excuse." -Kimberly Johnson
10. "Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare." - Japanese Proverb

April 2008

1. "Someone once told me that raising a child is a lot like teaching a child to ride a bike. The trick is knowing when to hold on and when to let go." - Joan Marie Saxon, writer
2. "Lots of people want to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down." - Oprah Winfrey, entrepreneur
3. "I look forward to being older, when what you look like becomes less and less an issue and what you are is the point." - Susan Sarandon, actor
4. Good communication is as stimulating as black coffee, and just as hard to sleep after." - Anne Morrow Lindbergh, writer and aviator.
5. “The key to success is to determine your goal and then act as if it were impossible to fail - and it shall be!" - Dorothea Brande, Writer
6. "It's never too late to be who you might have been." - George Eliot (1819-1880), Writer
7. "I believe in taking a positive attitude toward the world. My hope still is to leave the world a little bit better than when I got here." - Jim Henson, Muppets creator
8. "The most difficult thing in the world is to know how to do a thing and to watch someone else doing it wrong, without commenting." - T.H. White, writer.
9. "The child benefits more from being valued than evaluated." - Don Dinkmeyer. "Difficult decisions defy gravity. They travel uphill until they reach the person at the top." - Carmen Mariano, educator and writer.
10. “There is no such thing in anyone's life as an unimportant day.” - Alexander Woollcott, Long, Long Ago

March 2008

1. "Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it." - Matthew Broderick
2. "Unable are the loved to die, For love is immortality." - Emily Dickinson, poet
3. "The most called-upon prerequisite of a friend is an accessible ear." -Maya Angelou
4. "In the depths of winter I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer." - Albert Camus, writer
5. "Too much of a good thing is wonderful." - Mae West
6. "Do anything better than it was ever done before and you'll get rich." - Walt Disney, entrepreneur
7. "Man must not allow the clock and the calendar to blind him to the fact that each moment of your life is a miracle and a mystery." - H.G. Wells, writer and historian
8. "Patience is the companion of wisdom." - St. Augustine, clergyman
9. "The game of life is the game of boomerangs. Our thoughts, deeds and words return to us sooner or later with astounding accuracy." - Florence Shinn (1871-1940), Writer
10. "TV cameras seem to add ten pounds to my weight... So I make it a policy never to eat TV cameras!" - Kitty Carlisle Hart, Actor

February 2008

1. "I used to think I had ambition…but now I'm not so sure. It may have been only discontent. They're easily confused." - Rachel Field (1894-1942), Writer and Poet
2. "Cherish you visions and your dreams as they are the children of your soul; the blueprints of your ultimate achievements." - Napoleon Hill, Writer
3. “One mental quality that facilitates discovery is a willingness to goof around." - Robert S. Root-Bertstein
4. "It takes twenty years to make an overnight success!" - Eddie Cantor
5. "There is no security in life, only opportunity." - Mark Twain
6. "A moment's insight is sometimes worth a life's experience." - Oliver Wendell Holmes
7. "Few delights can equal the mere presence of one whom we trust utterly." - George MacDonald
8. "Difficulties mastered are opportunities won." - Sir Winston Churchill
9. "I never wanted to set records. The only thing I strived for was perfection." - Wilt Chamberlain
10. "If I had to do it all over again, I'd do it all over again." - Yogi Berra

January 2008

1. 'If you create from the heart, nearly everything works; if from the head, almost nothing." –Marc Chagall
2. "We sing from the right side of the brain, talk from the left. "
3. "If you woke up this morning, it's time to celebrate!" -Joe Takash
4. "The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible." –Arthur Clarke, science fiction writer
5. "It is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers." -James Thurber
6. "In matters of style swim with the current; in matters of principle stand like a rock." –Thomas Jefferson
7. "Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps; for he is the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are and what they ought to be." –William Hazlitt, essayist
8. "We are our choices." –Jean-Paul Sartre
9. "Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired, and success achieved." –Helen Keller
10. "Exhilaration is that feeling you get just after a great idea hits you, and just before you realize what's wrong with it." –James Liter

December 2007

1. "The bottom line is that leadership shows up in the inspired action of others. We traditionally have assessed leaders themselves. But maybe we would assess leadership by the degree which people around leaders are inspired." - Dr. Jack Weber, Professor of Management, University of Virginia
2. "Treasure the love you receive above all. It will survive long after your good health has vanished." - Og Mandino
3. "You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you." - Dale Carnegie
4. "Play the 'Reverse Gossip' Game. See how many nice things you can say 'behind someone's back'." - Bob Burg
5. "Good service leads to multiple sales. If you take good care of your customers, they will open doors you could never open by yourself." - Jim Rohn
6. "You are a product of your environment. So choose the environment that will best develop you toward your objective. Analyze your life in terms of its environment. Are the things around you helping you toward success - or are they holding you back?" - W. Clement Stone
7. "To dream anything that you want to dream, that is the beauty of the human mind. To do anything that you want to do, that is the strength of the human will. To trust yourself, to test your limits, that is the courage to succeed." - Bernard Edmonds
8. "To set and work toward any goal is an act of courage." - Stephen Covey
9. "There is great treasure there behind our skull and this is true about all of us. This little treasure has great, great powers, and I would say we only have learned a very, very small part of what it can do." - Isaac Bashevis Singer
10. " Don't smother each other. No one can grow in the shade." - Leo Buscaglia

November 2007

1. Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds you plant. – Robert Louis Stevenson
2. Today changes must come fast; and we must adjust our mental habits, so that we accept comfortably the idea of stopping one thing and beginning another overnight…We must assume that there is probably a better way to do almost everything. We must stop assuming that a thing which has never been done before probably cannot be done at all. –Donald M. Nelson
3. You are what you think about all day long. – Dr. Robert Schuller
4. What the mind of a man can conceive and believe the mind of a man can achieve. – Napoleon Hill
5. Time is free, but it’s priceless. You can’t own it, but you can use it. You can’t keep it, but you can spend it. Once you’ve lost it, you can never get it back. – Harvey Mackay
6. If you go as far as you can see, you will then see enough to go even farther. – John Wooden
7. Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see the shadow. It’s what sunflowers do.– Helen Keller
8. Mistakes are painful when they happen, but years later a collection of mistakes is what is called experience. – Denis Waitley
9. What counts is not necessarily the size of the dog in the fight – it’s the size of the fight in the dog. – Dwight D. Eisenhower
10. For peace of mind, we need to resign as general manager of the universe. - Larry Eisenberg

October 2007

1. Success, like happiness, cannot be pursued. It must ensue. And it only does so as the unintended side effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself. - Viktor Frankl
2. The beginning is the most important part of the work.- Plato
3. Leadership is a concept we often resist. It seems immodest, even self-aggrandizing, to think of ourselves as leaders. But if it is true that we are made of community, then leadership is everyone's vocation, and it can be an evasion to insist that it is not. When we live in the close-knit ecosystem called community, everyone follows and everyone leads. - Parker Palmer, Let Your Life Speak
4. Forgive others for your own good as well as for the good of those you forgive. Holding onto anger and resentment is a decision to suffer. – Michael Josephson
5. A man of humanity is one who, in seeking to establish himself finds a foothold for others and, who desiring attainment for himself helps others to attain.– Confucius
6. What is right is right even if no one is doing it. What is wrong is wrong even if everyone is doing it. – Unknown
7. Once you tell a lie, you need to create a whole bodyguard of lies to protect it. --Winston Churchill
8. Life is to be lived. If you have to support yourself, you had bloody well better find a way that is going to be interesting.– Katherine Hepburn
9. Time is infinitely more precious than money, and there is nothing common between them. You cannot accumulate time; you cannot borrow time; you can never tell how much time you have left in the Bank of Life. Time is life… - Isreal Davidson; Writer
10. When you go in a restaurant, always ask for a table near a waiter.

September 2007

1. People begin to become successful the minute they decide to be. - Harvey Mackay
2. Somehow I can't believe that there are any heights that can't be scaled by a man who knows the secrets of making dreams come true. This special secret - curiosity, confidence, courage, and constancy, and the greatest of all is confidence. When you believe in a thing, believe in it all the way, implicitly and unquestionable. - Walt Disney
3. You are today where your thoughts have brought you; you will be tomorrow where your thoughts take you. - James Allen
4. Let's cease thinking of our accomplishments, our wants. Let's try to figure out the other man's good points. Then forget flattery. Give honest, sincere appreciation. Be hearty in your approbation and lavish in your praise, and people will cherish your words and treasure them and repeat them over a lifetime -- repeat them years after you have forgotten them. - Dale Carnegie
5. Our character is revealed by how we treat people who cannot help us or hurt us. - Winston Churchill
6. Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail. Ralph Waldo Emerson
7. If you want to know how to live your life, think about what you want people to say about you after you die, and live backward - Unknown
8. It is not your aptitude, but your attitude, that determines your altitude - Zig Ziglar
9. The toughest lesson to learn is probably the one you thought you already learned.
10. The bad news is time flies. The good new is....you're the pilot. - Michael Altshuler

Flaks-seeds: Clients encourage me to capture and post some of the things I say