Appalachian Wisdom Quotes

Want wisdom? Laugh at yourself.

Satisfaction in reaching goals does not always lie in the speed with which we achieve them; sometimes the satisfaction rises from overcoming obstacles and gaining wisdom in our journeys.

Wisdom is knowing when perseverance will be rewarded.

Grandma saw our red dog road as a place where I might fall down and get hurt. But I knew if I did I'd get back up. And that red dog road would lead me to every place I would ever go in my lifetime.

Grandma saw our red dog road as a place where I might fall down and get hurt. But I knew if I did, I'd get back up. And that red dog road would lead me to every place I would ever go in my lifetime.

But at the end of the day, you have to want it. Plain and simple. The ego doesn’t have to be destructive, and it doesn’t have to make you lose sight of the real reasons you do what you do. It doesn’t have to go to your head. But when push comes to shove, nothing motivates like winning does. I remembered that electricity. I still felt the young athlete inside me who thrived on winning. I’d gotten wiser over the years, and that wisdom had made me a more complete person, a better partner—but it also made me slower. There was no way around it. The more perspective I got, the more disconnected I became from the pure drive to win and dominate. Without that drive, the discomfort and pain that racing took didn’t seem worth it.

The composer Aaron Copland got it right. An Appalachian spring is music for dancing. The woods dance with the colors of wildflowers, nodding sprays of white dogwood and the pink froth of redbuds, rushing streams and the embroidered solemnity of dark mountains.