“
Attitude is a choice. Happiness is a choice. Optimism is a choice. Kindness is a choice. Giving is a choice. Respect is a choice. Whatever choice you make makes you. Choose wisely.
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Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
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Once you realize you deserve a bright future, letting go of your dark past is the best choice you will ever make.
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”
Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
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Maturity is when you stop complaining and making excuses, and start making changes.
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”
Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
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Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve.
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Napoleon Hill (Think and Grow Rich: A Black Choice)
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You Are the Master of Your Attitude
You cannot control what happens to you, but you can control the way you think about all the events. You always have a choice. You can choose to face them with a positive mental attitude.
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Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
“
Plant seeds of happiness, hope, success, and love; it will all come back to you in abundance. This is the law of nature.
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Steve Maraboli (Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience)
“
How would your life be different if…You stopped allowing other people to dilute or poison your day with their words or opinions? Let today be the day…You stand strong in the truth of your beauty and journey through your day without attachment to the validation of others.
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Steve Maraboli (Life, the Truth, and Being Free)
“
Beliefs are choices. First you choose your beliefs. Then your beliefs affect your choices.
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Roy T. Bennett
“
It's a funny thing about life, once you begin to take note of the things you are grateful for, you begin to lose sight of the things that you lack.
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Germany Kent
“
Every choice comes with a consequence. Once you make a choice, you must accept responsibility. You cannot escape the consequences of your choices, whether you like them or not.
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Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
“
This life is for loving, sharing, learning, smiling, caring, forgiving, laughing, hugging, helping, dancing, wondering, healing, and even more loving. I choose to live life this way. I want to live my life in such a way that when I get out of bed in the morning, the devil says, 'aw shit, he's up!
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Steve Maraboli (Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience)
“
Love is blind, they say; sex is impervious to reason and mocks the power of all philosophers. But, in fact, a person's sexual choice is the result and sum of their fundamental convictions. Tell me what a person finds sexually attractive and I will tell you their entire philosophy of life. Show me the person they sleep with and I will tell you their valuation of themselves. No matter what corruption they're taught about the virtue of selflessness, sex is the most profoundly selfish of all acts, an act which they cannot perform for any motive but their own enjoyment - just try to think of performing it in a spirit of selfless charity! - an act which is not possible in self-abasement, only in self-exultation, only on the confidence of being desired and being worthy of desire. It is an act that forces them to stand naked in spirit, as well as in body, and accept their real ego as their standard of value. They will always be attracted to the person who reflects their deepest vision of themselves, the person whose surrender permits them to experience - or to fake - a sense of self-esteem .. Love is our response to our highest values - and can be nothing else.
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Ayn Rand
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If you have a goal, write it down. If you do not write it down, you do not have a goal - you have a wish.
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Steve Maraboli (Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience)
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Life always begins with one step outside of your comfort zone.
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Shannon L. Alder
“
It's up to you today to start making healthy choices. Not choices that are just healthy for your body, but healthy for your mind.
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Steve Maraboli (Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience)
“
Fear robs you of your freedom to make the right choice in life that can bridge the gap between where you are and where you want to be. On the other side of fear, lies freedom. If you want to grow, you need to be brave and take risks. If you're not uncomfortable, you're not growing.
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Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
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You have two choices, to conquer your fear or to let your fear conquer you.
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Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
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Do what you think is right. Don't let people make the decision of right or wrong for you.
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Steve Maraboli (Life, the Truth, and Being Free)
“
Your beliefs affect your choices. Your choices shape your actions. Your actions determine your results. The future you create depends upon the choices you make and the actions you take today.
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Roy T. Bennett
“
Happiness is a state of mind, a choice, a way of living; it is not something to be achieved, it is something to be experienced.
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Steve Maraboli (Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience)
“
Be miserable. Or motivate yourself. Whatever has to be done, it's always your choice.
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”
Wayne W. Dyer
“
Focus on making choices to lead your life that aligns with your core values in the most purposeful way possible.
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Roy T. Bennett
“
Maturity is when you stop complaining and making excuses in your life; you realize everything that happens in life is a result of the previous choice you’ve made and start making new choices to change your life.
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”
Roy T. Bennett
“
Never underestimate the power you have to take your life in a new direction.
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Germany Kent
“
Never pray to be a better slave when God is trying to get you out of your situation.
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Shannon L. Alder
“
No one is an unjust villain in his own mind. Even - perhaps even especially - those who are the worst of us. Some of the cruelest tyrants in history were motivated by noble ideals, or made choices that they would call 'hard but necessary steps' for the good of their nation. We're all the hero of our own story.
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Jim Butcher (Turn Coat (The Dresden Files, #11))
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It’s hard to believe there are people that don’t read books. There’s so much magic in words and well told stories.
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C. Toni Graham
“
Get immersed in the beauty that surrounds you. No filters, edits, or adjustments. Experience the colors, sounds, textures and smells within your reach. Live.
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C. Toni Graham
“
I regret nothing. No woman with any self-respect would have done less. The question of good and evil will always be one of philosophy's most intriguing problems, up there with the problem of existence itself. I'm not quarreling with your choice of issues, only with your intellectually diminished approach. If evil means to be self-motivated, to live on one's own terms, then every artist, every thinker, every original mind, is evil. Because we dare to look through our own eyes rather than mouth cliches lent us from the so-called Fathers. To dare to see is to steal fire from the Gods. This is mankind's destiny, the engine which fuels us as a race.
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Janet Fitch (White Oleander)
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The most powerful magic of all is choice.
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Sara Raasch (Ice Like Fire (Snow Like Ashes, #2))
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It is difficult to make the right choice if you fear choosing wrongly.
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Roy T. Bennett
“
Why Not You?
Today, many will awaken with a fresh sense of inspiration. Why not you?
Today, many will open their eyes to the beauty that surrounds them. Why not you?
Today, many will choose to leave the ghost of yesterday behind and seize the immeasurable power of today. Why not you?
Today, many will break through the barriers of the past by looking at the blessings of the present. Why not you?
Today, for many the burden of self doubt and insecurity will be lifted by the security and confidence of empowerment. Why not you?
Today, many will rise above their believed limitations and make contact with their powerful innate strength. Why not you?
Today, many will choose to live in such a manner that they will be a positive role model for their children. Why not you?
Today, many will choose to free themselves from the personal imprisonment of their bad habits. Why not you?
Today, many will choose to live free of conditions and rules governing their own happiness. Why not you?
Today, many will find abundance in simplicity. Why not you?
Today, many will be confronted by difficult moral choices and they will choose to do what is right instead of what is beneficial. Why not you?
Today, many will decide to no longer sit back with a victim mentality, but to take charge of their lives and make positive changes. Why not you?
Today, many will take the action necessary to make a difference. Why not you?
Today, many will make the commitment to be a better mother, father, son, daughter, student, teacher, worker, boss, brother, sister, & so much more. Why not you?
Today is a new day!
Many will seize this day.
Many will live it to the fullest.
Why not you?
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Steve Maraboli (Life, the Truth, and Being Free)
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Never surrender your hopes and dreams to the fateful limitations others have placed on their own lives. The vision of your true destiny does not reside within the blinkered outlook of the naysayers and the doom prophets. Judge not by their words, but accept advice based on the evidence of actual results. Do not be surprised should you find a complete absence of anything mystical or miraculous in the manifested reality of those who are so eager to advise you. Friends and family who suffer the lack of abundance, joy, love, fulfillment and prosperity in their own lives really have no business imposing their self-limiting beliefs on your reality experience.
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Anthon St. Maarten
“
It is not as much about who you used to be, as it is about who you choose to be.
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Sanhita Baruah
“
Today is a new day. It's a day you have never seen before and will never see again. Stop telling yourself the 'same crap, different day' lie! How many days has that lie stolen from you? Seize the wonder and uniqueness of today! Recognize that throughout this beautiful day, you have an incredible amount of opportunities to move your life into the direction you want it to go.
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Steve Maraboli (Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience)
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People in general would rather die than forgive. It's that hard. If God said in plain language. "I'm giving you a choice, forgive or die," a lot of people would go ahead and order their coffin.
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Sue Monk Kidd
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The comfort zone is a psychological state in which one feels familiar, safe, at ease, and secure.
If you always do what is easy and choose the path of least resistance, you never step outside your comfort zone. Great things don’t come from comfort zones.
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Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
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If reading makes you happy, do it. Whatever makes your heart sing and brings you joy, do that too.
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C. Toni Graham
“
Whatever choice you make makes you. Choose wisely.
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Roy T. Bennett
“
You cannot continue on the same path and arrive at a different destination. Make the choice to have your actions reflect your goals.
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Steve Maraboli (Life, the Truth, and Being Free)
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Remember to celebrate the small accomplishments along your journey because they will provide the support needed when the road gets rocky.
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C. Toni Graham
“
Sustain joy by anchoring yourself with gratitude.
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C. Toni Graham
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Imagination is not bound by possibilities. The creative mind will always break the shackles—making the impossible, possible.
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C. Toni Graham
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To merge on the road you are meant to travel, means making a choice and then taking action.
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C. Toni Graham
“
Make the choice to embrace this day. Do not let your TODAY be stolen by the ghost of yesterday or the "To-Do" list of tomorrow! It’s inspiring to see all the wonderfully amazing things that can happen in a day in which you participate.
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Steve Maraboli (Life, the Truth, and Being Free)
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War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth a war, is much worse. When a people are used as mere human instruments for firing cannon or thrusting bayonets, in the service and for the selfish purposes of a master, such war degrades a people. A war to protect other human beings against tyrannical injustice; a war to give victory to their own ideas of right and good, and which is their own war, carried on for an honest purpose by their free choice, — is often the means of their regeneration. A man who has nothing which he is willing to fight for, nothing which he cares more about than he does about his personal safety, is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. As long as justice and injustice have not terminated their ever-renewing fight for ascendancy in the affairs of mankind, human beings must be willing, when need is, to do battle for the one against the other.
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John Stuart Mill (Principles of Political Economy (Great Minds Series))
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The elements of the written word can be purely magical. I read and I write...I inspire and I’m living.
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C. Toni Graham
“
It’s not just the big moments that count, it’s all of the small actions that feed our heart and soul on a daily basis. Cherish those moments and reflect on how to replicate them often.
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C. Toni Graham
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Life’s too short to walk around with your arms crossed and bottom lip poked out. Find a way to smile for yourself even if it’s as simple as licking the spoon clean or putting clean sheets on your bed.
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C. Toni Graham
“
Your dream is a reality that is waiting for you to materialize. Today is a new day! Don’t let your history interfere with your destiny! Learn from your past so that it can empower your present and propel you to greatness
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Steve Maraboli (Life, the Truth, and Being Free)
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Writers create impressions that inspire, stir emotions, evoke questions and sprinkle seeds of awe.
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C. Toni Graham
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Do you wait for things to happen, or do you make them happen yourself? I believe in writing your own story.
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Charlotte Eriksson
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Although goals are important, having a plan of action is vital to the success of those goals. Having a goal with no plan of action is like wanting to travel to a new destination without having a map.
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Steve Maraboli (Life, the Truth, and Being Free)
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Writers have influenced thoughts, principals, viewpoints and experiences throughout history. A talented writer’s pen is anointed with magic!
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C. Toni Graham
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Every game is winnable if you change your mind about what the prize should be and your perspective about the players at the table.
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Shannon L. Alder
“
Every challenge you encounter in life is a fork in the road. You have the choice to choose which way to go - backward, forward, breakdown or breakthrough.
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”
Ifeanyi Enoch Onuoha (Overcoming the Challenges of Life)
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Inspiration ignites the spark of magic. Creativity is magic.
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C. Toni Graham
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We have only one option, to struggle or succumb. The choice is ours.
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Merlin Franco (A Dowryless Wedding)
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You opinions about me does not change who I am.
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Lailah Gifty Akita (Think Great: Be Great! (Beautiful Quotes, #1))
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Make a pact with yourself today to not be defined by your past. Instead, shake things up today! Live through today. Don’t just exist through it - LIVE through it!
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Steve Maraboli (Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience)
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Today is the day you choose to find joy, fulfillment and the path that will make your heart sing. It's your choice, never lose sight of that.
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C. Toni Graham
“
The way you live your day is a sentence in the story of your life. Each day you make the choice whether the sentence ends with a period, question mark, or exclamation point.
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Steve Maraboli (Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience)
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Blessings! Count them and be thankful. Ask for an abundance of them and accept with gratitude.
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C. Toni Graham
“
Diversity of character is due to the unequal time given to values. Only through each other will we see the importance of the qualities we lack and our unfinished soul's potential.
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Shannon L. Alder
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Act as if it was, and it will be.
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Lailah Gifty Akita (Pearls of Wisdom: Great mind)
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Any day above ground is a good day. Before you complain about anything, be thankful for your life and the things that are still going well.
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Germany Kent
“
I choose to live by choice, not by chance; to make changes, not excuses; to be motivated, not manipulated; to be useful, not used; to excel, not to compete. I choose self-esteem, not self-pity. I choose to listen to my inner voice, not the random opinion of others. I choose to be me.
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Miranda Marrott
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Optimism. One of the most important qualities of a good leader is optimism, a pragmatic enthusiasm for what can be achieved. Even in the face of difficult choices and less than ideal outcomes, an optimistic leader does not yield to pessimism. Simply put, people are not motivated or energized by pessimists.
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Robert Iger (The Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons Learned from 15 Years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company)
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When you establish a destination by defining what you want, then take physical action by making choices that move you towards that destination, the possibility for success is limitless and arrival at the destination is inevitable.
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Steve Maraboli (Life, the Truth, and Being Free)
“
My belief is that we have an opportunity, each and every day, to make choices that can have a positive impact, or not. Each day we awake is like a reset. Decide each day to make impactful choices.
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C. Toni Graham
“
We are mathematical equations where your life is the sum of all choices you've made until now. The good news is you can change the equation so that you start making a difference in your life.
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Steve Maraboli (Life, the Truth, and Being Free)
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Life is complicated. If life was simple, wouldn’t that make us simpletons?
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C. Toni Graham
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Stay true to your passion as it will lead you to your purpose.
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C. Toni Graham
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Take time daily to reflect on how much you have. It may not be all that you want but remember someone somewhere is dreaming to have what you have.
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Germany Kent
“
Stop giving people the power to control your smile, your worth, your attitude and your day. Don’t give anyone that much power over your life.
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Germany Kent
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Hold yourself back, or heal yourself back together. You decide.
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Brittany Burgunder
“
Let today mark a new beginning for you. Give yourself permission to say NO without feeling guilty, mean, or selfish. Anybody who gets upset and/or expects you to say YES all of the time clearly doesn’t have your best interest at heart. Always remember: You have a right to say NO without having to explain yourself. Be at peace with your decisions.
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Stephanie Lahart
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Personal responsibility is the willingness to completely accept choices that we have made throughout our life.
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Asa Don Brown
“
Each day gives the opportunity for you to be treated right, to feel worthy, and to be successful. It’s a choice you have to make, a faith you have to embrace, and a standard you have to set.
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Steve Maraboli (Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience)
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Forget about willpower. It's time for why-power. Your choices are only meaningful when you connect them to your desires and dreams. The wisest and most motivating choices are the ones aligned with that which you identify as your purpose, your core self, and your highest values. You've got to want something, and know why you want it, or you'll end up giving up too easily.
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Darren Hardy (The Compound Effect: Jumpstart Your Income, Your Life, Your Success)
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You will hardly find wrong people at right places. Choose to be at the right places and you will find the right people who will inspire you to make it happen!
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Israelmore Ayivor (Leaders' Watchwords)
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It's the days you have every right to breakdown and fall apart, yet choose to show up anyway that matter most. Don't diminish the small steps that others can't see.
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Brittany Burgunder
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Positive thinking is powerful thinking. If you want happiness, fulfillment, success and inner peace, start thinking you have the power to achieve those things. Focus on the bright side of life and expect positive results.
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Germany Kent
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Happiness is achieved when you stop waiting for your life to begin and start making the most of the moment you are in.
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Germany Kent
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In the face of adversity, we have a choice.
We can be bitter, or we can be better. Those words are my North Star.
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Caryn Sullivan (Bitter Or Better: Grappling with Life on the Op-Ed Page)
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You can't stop a soldier from being frightened but you can give him motivation to help him overcome that fear. I have no such motivation. I can't have. I'm a witcher: an artificially created mutant. I kill monsters for money. I defend children when their parents pay me to. If Nilfgaardian parents pay me, I'll defend Nilfgaardian children. And even if the world lies in ruin - which does not seem likely to me - I'll carry on killing monsters in the ruins of this world until some monster kills me. That is my fate, my reason, my life and my attitude to the world. And it is not what I chose. It was chosen for me.
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Andrzej Sapkowski (Krew elfów (Saga o Wiedźminie, #1))
“
Love is blind, they say; sex is impervious to reason and mocks the power of all philosophers. But, in fact, a man’s sexual choice is the result and the sum of his fundamental convictions. Tell me what a man finds sexually attractive and I will tell you his entire philosophy on life. Show me the woman he sleeps with and I will tell you his valuation of himself. No matter what corruption he’s taught about the virtue of selflessness, sex is the most profoundly selfish of all acts, an act which he cannot perform for any motive but his own enjoyment–just try to think of performing it in a spirit of selfless charity!–an act which is not possible in self-abasement, only in self-exaltation, only in confidence of being desired and being worthy of desire.
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Ayn Rand (Atlas Shrugged)
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I know it's not strictly sex that accounts for my straying the motive usually attributed to men. I think it's just too tempting to have two lives rather than one. Some people think that too much travel begets infidelity: Separation and opportunity test the bonds of love. I think it's more likely that people who hate to make choices to settle on one thing or another are attracted to travel. Travel doesn't beget a double life. The appeal of the double life begets travel.
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Elisabeth Eaves (Wanderlust: A Love Affair with Five Continents)
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When, therefore, we maintain that pleasure is the end, we do not mean the pleasures of profligates and those that consist in sensuality, as is supposed by some who are either ignorant or disagree with us or do not understand, but freedom from pain in the body and from trouble in the mind. For it is not continuous drinkings and revelings, nor the satisfaction of lusts, nor the enjoyment of fish and other luxuries of the wealthy table, which produce a pleasant life, but sober reasoning, searching out the motives for all choice and avoidance, and banishing mere opinions, to which are due the greatest disturbance of the spirit.
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Epicurus
“
Gale didn't say, "Katniss will pick whoever it will break her heart to give up," or even "whoever she can't live without." Those would have implied I was motivated by a kind of passion. But my best friend predicts I will choose the person "I can't survive without." There's not the least indication that love, desire, or even compatibility will sway me. I'll just conduct an unfeeling assessment of what my potential mates can offer me.
As if in the end, it will be the question of whether a baker or a hunter will extend my longevity the most. It's a horrible thing for Gale to say, for Peeta not to refute. Especially when every emotion I have has been taken or exploited by the Capitol or the rebels. At the moment, the choice would be simple. I can survive just fine without either of them.
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”
Suzanne Collins (Mockingjay (The Hunger Games, #3))
“
A man worth being with is one…
That never lies to you
Is kind to people that have hurt him
A person that respects another’s life
That has manners and shows people respect
That goes out of his way to help people
That feels every person, no matter how difficult, deserves compassion
Who believes you are the most beautiful person he has ever met
Who brags about your accomplishments with pride
Who talks to you about anything and everything because no bad news will make him love you less
That is a peacemaker
That will see you through illness
Who keeps his promises
Who doesn’t blame others, but finds the good in them
That raises you up and motivates you to reach for the stars
That doesn’t need fame, money or anything materialistic to be happy
That is gentle and patient with children
Who won’t let you lie to yourself; he tells you what you need to hear, in order to help you grow
Who lives what he says he believes in
Who doesn’t hold a grudge or hold onto the past
Who doesn’t ask his family members to deliberately hurt people that have hurt him
Who will run with your dreams
That makes you laugh at the world and yourself
Who forgives and is quick to apologize
Who doesn’t betray you by having inappropriate conversations with other women
Who doesn’t react when he is angry, decides when he is sad or keep promises he doesn’t plan to keep
Who takes his children’s spiritual life very seriously and teaches by example
Who never seeks revenge or would ever put another person down
Who communicates to solve problems
Who doesn’t play games or passive aggressively ignores people to hurt them
Who is real and doesn’t pretend to be something he is not
Who has the power to free you from yourself through his positive outlook
Who has a deep respect for women and treats them like a daughter of God
Who doesn’t have an ego or believes he is better than anyone
Who is labeled constantly by people as the nicest person they have ever met
Who works hard to provide for the family
Who doesn’t feel the need to drink alcohol to have a good time, smoke or do drugs
Who doesn't have to hang out a bar with his friends, but would rather spend his time with his family
Who is morally free from sin
Who sees your potential to be great
Who doesn't think a woman's place has to be in the home; he supports your life mission, where ever that takes you
Who is a gentleman
Who is honest and lives with integrity
Who never discusses your private business with anyone
Who will protect his family
Who forgives, forgets, repairs and restores
When you find a man that possesses these traits then all the little things you don’t have in common don’t matter. This is the type of man worth being grateful for.
”
”
Shannon L. Alder
“
Men write more books. Men give more lectures. Men ask more questions after lectures. Men post more e-mail to Internet discussion groups. To say this is due to patriarchy is to beg the question of the behavior's origin. If men control society, why don't they just shut up and enjoy their supposed prerogatives? The answer is obvious when you consider sexual competition: men can't be quiet because that would give other men a chance to show off verbally. Men often bully women into silence, but this is usually to make room for their own verbal display. If men were dominating public language just to maintain patriarchy, that would qualify as a puzzling example of evolutionary altruism—a costly, risky individual act that helps all of one's sexual competitors (other males) as much as oneself. The ocean of male language that confronts modern women in bookstores, television, newspapers, classrooms, parliaments, and businesses does not necessarily come from a male conspiracy to deny women their voice. It may come from an evolutionary history of sexual selection in which the male motivation to talk was vital to their reproduction.
”
”
Geoffrey Miller (The Mating Mind: How Sexual Choice Shaped the Evolution of Human Nature)
“
If you want to be happy you have to study people who are happy. You have to hang out with people that are happy. Life won't go in the direction you want, by simply trying to stay positive in a life you're not happy with. You have to know what you want and why you truly want it so badly. When you figure that out then you need to change your current identity, in order to fit the type of person you envision would make those dreams come true. Happiness is not reliant on the actions or inactions of other people. It is your “courage in motion” toward your dreams.
”
”
Shannon L. Alder
“
Logic and morality made it impossible to accept an illogical and immoral reality; they engendered a rejection of reality which as a rule led the cultivated man rapidly to despair. But the varieties of the man-animal are innumerable, and I saw and have described men of refined culture, especially if young, throw all this overboard, simplify and barbarize themselves, and survive. A simple man, accustomed not to ask questions of himself, was beyond the reach of the useless torment of asking himself why.
The harsher the oppression, the more widespread among the oppressed is the willingness, with all its infinite nuances and motivations, to collaborate: terror, ideological seduction, servile imitation of the victor, myopic desire for any power whatsoever… Certainly, the greatest responsibility lies with the system, the very structure of the totalitarian state; the concurrent guilt on the part of individual big and small collaborators is always difficult to evaluate… they are the vectors and instruments of the system’s guilt… the room for choices (especially moral choices) was reduced to zero
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”
Primo Levi (The Drowned and the Saved)
“
If you make a choice in this conference and you stick to it to be an excellent person in everything you do and you stick to it especially to be excellent when nobody is looking and do it not to get a result but to glorify God you’re going to have peace and joy and you’re going to have results. My concern is that if we just do something to get results then we’re not likely to follow things all the way through to the finish, because we get very discouraged, and I think that’s one of the reasons we have such discouragement among people. “Well, I’m doing this, and I expected to get a breakthrough before now.” ….. Well, I think God has to purify our hearts and get us to the point where we are not just doing something right just to get something!
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”
Joyce Meyer
“
Anger is an assertion of rights and worth. It is communication, equality, and knowledge. It is intimacy, acceptance, fearlessness, embodiment, revolt, and reconciliation. Anger is memory and rage. It is rational thought and irrational pain. Anger is freedom, independence, expansiveness, and entitlement. It is justice, passion, clarity, and motivation. Anger is instrumental, thoughtful, complicated, and resolved. In anger, whether you like it or not, there is truth.
Anger is the demand of accountability, It is evaluation, judgment, and refutation. It is reflective, visionary, and participatory. It's a speech act, a social statement, an intention, and a purpose. It's a risk and a threat. A confirmation and a wish. It is both powerlessness and power, palliative and a provocation. In anger, you will find both ferocity and comfort, vulnerability and hurt. Anger is the expression of hope.
How much anger is too much? Certainly not the anger that, for many of us, is a remembering of a self we learned to hide and quiet. It is willful and disobedient. It is survival, liberation, creativity, urgency, and vibrancy. It is a statement of need. An insistence of acknowledgment. Anger is a boundary. Anger is boundless. An opportunity for contemplation and self-awareness. It is commitment. Empathy. Self-love. Social responsibility. If it is poison, it is also the antidote. The anger we have as women is an act of radical imagination. Angry women burn brighter than the sun.
In the coming years, we will hear, again, that anger is a destructive force, to be controlled. Watch carefully, because not everyone is asked to do this in equal measure. Women, especially, will be told to set our anger aside in favor of a kinder, gentler approach to change. This is a false juxtaposition. Reenvisioned, anger can be the most feminine of virtues: compassionate, fierce, wise, and powerful. The women I admire most—those who have looked to themselves and the limitations and adversities that come with our bodies and the expectations that come with them—have all found ways to transform their anger into meaningful change. In them, anger has moved from debilitation to liberation.
Your anger is a gift you give to yourself and the world that is yours. In anger, I have lived more fully, freely, intensely, sensitively, and politically. If ever there was a time not to silence yourself, to channel your anger into healthy places and choices, this is it.
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Soraya Chemaly (Rage Becomes Her: The Power of Women's Anger)
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My Angel,
My greatest hope is that you never have to read this. Vee knows to give you this letter only if my feather is burned and I’m chained in hell or if Blakely develops a devilcraft prototype strong enough to kill me. When war between our races ignites, I don’t know what will become of our future. When I think about you and our plans. I feel a desperate aching. Never have I wanted things to turn out right as as I do now.
Before I leave this world, I need to make certain you know that all my love belongs to you. You are the same to me now as you were before you swore the Changeover Vow. You are mine. Always. I love the strength, courage, and gentleness of your soul. I love your body too. How could someone so sexy and perfect be mine? With you I have purpose-someone to love, cherish and protect.
There are secrets in my past that weigh on your mind. You've trusted me enough not to ask about them, and it's your faith that has made me a better man. I don’t want to leave you with anything hidden between us. I told you I was banished from heaven for falling in love with a human girl. The I way I explained it, I risked everything to be with her. I said those words because they simplified my motivations.
But they weren't the truth. The truth is I had become disenchanted with the archangels’s shifting goals and wanted to push back against them and their rules. That girl was an excuse to let go of an old way of living and accept a new journey that would eventually lead me to you. I believe in destiny, Angel. I believe every choice I've made has brought me closer to you. I looked for you for a very long time. I may have fallen from heaven but I fell for you.
I will do whatever it takes to make sure you win this war. Nephilim will come out on top. You’ll fulfill your vow to the Black Hand and be safe. This is my priority even if the cost is my life. I suspect this will make you angry. It may be hard to forgive me. I promised that we would be together at the end of this and you may resent me for the breaking that vow. I want you to know I did everything to keep my word. As I write this I am going over ever possibility that will see us through this. I hope I find a way. But if this choice I have to make comes down to your or me, I choose you.
I always have.
All my love,
Patch
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Becca Fitzpatrick (Finale (Hush, Hush, #4))
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Our schools will not improve if we continue to focus only on reading and mathematics while ignoring the other studies that are essential elements of a good education. Schools that expect nothing more of their students than mastery of basic skills will not produce graduates who are ready for college or the modern workplace.
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Our schools will not improve if we value only what tests measure. The tests we have now provide useful information about students' progress in reading and mathematics, but they cannot measure what matters most in education....What is tested may ultimately be less important that what is untested...
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Our schools will not improve if we continue to close neighborhood schools in the name of reform. Neighborhood schools are often the anchors of their communities, a steady presence that helps to cement the bond of community among neighbors.
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Our schools cannot improve if charter schools siphon away the most motivated students and their families in the poorest communities from the regular public schools.
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Our schools will not improve if we continue to drive away experienced principals and replace them with neophytes who have taken a leadership training course but have little or no experience as teachers.
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Our schools cannot be improved if we ignore the disadvantages associated with poverty that affect children's ability to learn. Children who have grown up in poverty need extra resources, including preschool and medical care.
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Diane Ravitch (The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education)
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Friendship is a difficult thing to define. Oscar here is my oldest friend. How would you define friendship, Oscar?"
Oscar grunts slightly, as though the answer is obvious.
"Friendship is about choice and chemistry. It cannot be defined."
"But surely there's something more to it than that."
"It is a willingness to overlook faults and to accept them. I would let a friend hurt me without striking back," he says, smiling. "But only once."
De Souza laughs. "Bravo, Oscar, I can always rely on you to distill an argument down to its purest form. What do you think, Dayel?"
The Indian rocks his head from side to side, proud that he has been asked to speak next.
"Friendship is different for each person and it changes throughout our lives. At age six it is about holding hands with your best friend. At sixteen it is about the adventure ahead. At sixty it is about reminiscing." He holds up a finger. "You cannot define it with any one word, although honesty is perhaps the closest word-"
"No, not honesty," Farhad interrupts. "On the contrary, we often have to protect our friends from what we truly think. It is like an unspoken agreement. We ignore each other's faults and keep our confidences. Friendship isn't about being honest. The truth is too sharp a weapon to wield around someone we trust and respect. Friendship is about self-awareness. We see ourselves through the eyes of our friends. They are like a mirror that allows us to judge how we are traveling."
De Souza clears his throat now. I wonder if he is aware of the awe that he inspires in others. I suspect he is too intelligent and too human to do otherwise.
"Friendship cannot be defined," he says sternly. "The moment we begin to give reasons for being friends with someone we begin to undermine the magic of the relationship. Nobody wants to know that they are loved for their money or their generosity or their beauty or their wit. Choose one motive and it allows a person to say, 'is that the only reason?'"
The others laugh. De Souza joins in with them. This is a performance.
He continues: "Trying to explain why we form particular friendships is like trying to tell someone why we like a certain kind of music or a particular food. We just do.
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Michael Robotham (The Night Ferry)
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HONESTY
is reached through the doorway of grief and loss. Where we cannot go in our mind, our memory, or our body is where we cannot be straight with another, with the world, or with our self. The fear of loss, in one form or another, is the motivator behind all conscious and unconscious dishonesties: all of us are afraid of loss, in all its forms, all of us, at times, are haunted or overwhelmed by the possibility of a disappearance, and all of us therefore, are one short step away from dishonesty. Every human being dwells intimately close to a door of revelation they are afraid to pass through. Honesty lies in understanding our close and necessary relationship with not wanting to hear the truth.
The ability to speak the truth is as much the ability to describe what it is like to stand in trepidation at this door, as it is to actually go through it and become that beautifully honest spiritual warrior, equal to all circumstances, we would like to become. Honesty is not the revealing of some foundational truth that gives us power over life or another or even the self, but a robust incarnation into the unknown unfolding vulnerability of existence, where we acknowledge how powerless we feel, how little we actually know, how afraid we are of not knowing and how astonished we are by the generous measure of grief that is conferred upon even the most average life.
Honesty is grounded in humility and indeed in humiliation, and in admitting exactly where we are powerless. Honesty is not found in revealing the truth, but in understanding how deeply afraid of it we are. To become honest is in effect to become fully and robustly incarnated into powerlessness. Honesty allows us to live with not knowing. We do not know the full story, we do not know where we are in the story; we do not know who is at fault or who will carry the blame in the end. Honesty is not a weapon to keep loss and heartbreak at bay, honesty is the outer diagnostic of our ability to come to ground in reality, the hardest attainable ground of all, the place where we actually dwell, the living, breathing frontier where there is no realistic choice between gain or loss.
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David Whyte