β
Keep Going
Your hardest times often lead to the greatest moments of your life. Keep going. Tough situations build strong people in the end.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
β
Be Brave and Take Risks: You need to have faith in yourself. Be brave and take risks. You don't have to have it all figured out to move forward.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
β
Patience Is Not the Ability to Wait:
Patience is not the ability to wait. Patience is to be calm no matter what happens, constantly take action to turn it to positive growth opportunities, and have faith to believe that it will all work out in the end while you are waiting.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
β
Rejection is an opportunity for your selection.
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β
Bernard Branson
β
Confidence is like a dragon where, for every head cut off, two more heads grow back.
β
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Criss Jami (Venus in Arms)
β
If you're waiting until you feel talented enough to make it, you'll never make it.
β
β
Criss Jami (Healology)
β
Faith moves mountains, love transforms hearts.
β
β
John Paul Warren
β
There are six reasons anyone does anything: Love. Faith. Greed. Boredom. Fear..." he said, ticking them off on his fingers; but he lingered on the last, drawing a deep breath before he said, "Revenge.
β
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Ally Carter (Don't Judge a Girl by Her Cover (Gallagher Girls, #3))
β
When God takes out the trash, don't go digging back through it. Trust Him.
β
β
Amaka Imani Nkosazana (Heart Crush)
β
Love is as simple as the absence of self given to another. God, when invited, fills the void of any unrequited love; hence loving is how one is drawn closer to God no matter its most horrific repercussions.
β
β
Criss Jami (Venus in Arms)
β
You need to have faith in yourself. Be brave and take risks. You don't have to have it all figured out to move forward.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett
β
Real change is difficult at the beginning. Without the familiar to rely upon, you may not in as much command as you had once been. When things are not going your way, you will start doubting yourself. Stay positive, keep the faith, and keep moving forward β your breakthrough may be just around the corner.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett
β
No matter how old you are now. You are never too young or too old for success or going after what you want. Hereβs a short list of people who accomplished great things at different ages
1) Helen Keller, at the age of 19 months, became deaf and blind. But that didnβt stop her. She was the first deaf and blind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree.
2) Mozart was already competent on keyboard and violin; he composed from the age of 5.
3) Shirley Temple was 6 when she became a movie star on βBright Eyes.β
4) Anne Frank was 12 when she wrote the diary of Anne Frank.
5) Magnus Carlsen became a chess Grandmaster at the age of 13.
6) Nadia ComΔneci was a gymnast from Romania that scored seven perfect 10.0 and won three gold medals at the Olympics at age 14.
7) Tenzin Gyatso was formally recognized as the 14th Dalai Lama in November 1950, at the age of 15.
8) Pele, a soccer superstar, was 17 years old when he won the world cup in 1958 with Brazil.
9) Elvis was a superstar by age 19.
10) John Lennon was 20 years and Paul Mcartney was 18 when the Beatles had their first concert in 1961.
11) Jesse Owens was 22 when he won 4 gold medals in Berlin 1936.
12) Beethoven was a piano virtuoso by age 23
13) Issac Newton wrote Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica at age 24
14) Roger Bannister was 25 when he broke the 4 minute mile record
15) Albert Einstein was 26 when he wrote the theory of relativity
16) Lance E. Armstrong was 27 when he won the tour de France
17) Michelangelo created two of the greatest sculptures βDavidβ and βPietaβ by age 28
18) Alexander the Great, by age 29, had created one of the largest empires of the ancient world
19) J.K. Rowling was 30 years old when she finished the first manuscript of Harry Potter
20) Amelia Earhart was 31 years old when she became the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean
21) Oprah was 32 when she started her talk show, which has become the highest-rated program of its kind
22) Edmund Hillary was 33 when he became the first man to reach Mount Everest
23) Martin Luther King Jr. was 34 when he wrote the speech βI Have a Dream."
24) Marie Curie was 35 years old when she got nominated for a Nobel Prize in Physics
25) The Wright brothers, Orville (32) and Wilbur (36) invented and built the world's first successful airplane and making the first controlled, powered and sustained heavier-than-air human flight
26) Vincent Van Gogh was 37 when he died virtually unknown, yet his paintings today are worth millions.
27) Neil Armstrong was 38 when he became the first man to set foot on the moon.
28) Mark Twain was 40 when he wrote "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer", and 49 years old when he wrote "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn"
29) Christopher Columbus was 41 when he discovered the Americas
30) Rosa Parks was 42 when she refused to obey the bus driverβs order to give up her seat to make room for a white passenger
31) John F. Kennedy was 43 years old when he became President of the United States
32) Henry Ford Was 45 when the Ford T came out.
33) Suzanne Collins was 46 when she wrote "The Hunger Games"
34) Charles Darwin was 50 years old when his book On the Origin of Species came out.
35) Leonardo Da Vinci was 51 years old when he painted the Mona Lisa.
36) Abraham Lincoln was 52 when he became president.
37) Ray Kroc Was 53 when he bought the McDonalds Franchise and took it to unprecedented levels.
38) Dr. Seuss was 54 when he wrote "The Cat in the Hat".
40) Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger III was 57 years old when he successfully ditched US Airways Flight 1549 in the Hudson River in 2009. All of the 155 passengers aboard the aircraft survived
41) Colonel Harland Sanders was 61 when he started the KFC Franchise
42) J.R.R Tolkien was 62 when the Lord of the Ring books came out
43) Ronald Reagan was 69 when he became President of the US
44) Jack Lalane at age 70 handcuffed, shackled, towed 70 rowboats
45) Nelson Mandela was 76 when he became President
β
β
Pablo
β
Let your life reflect the faith you have in God. Fear nothing and pray about everything. Be strong, trust God's word, and trust the process.
β
β
Germany Kent
β
How to win in life:
1 work hard
2 complain less
3 listen more
4 try, learn, grow
5 don't let people tell you it cant be done
6 make no excuses
β
β
Germany Kent
β
Then came the healing time, hearts started to shine, soul felt so fine, oh what a freeing time it was.
β
β
Aberjhani (Songs from the Black Skylark zPed Music Player)
β
Your comfort zone is a place where you keep yourself in a self-illusion and nothing can grow there but your potentiality can grow only when you can think and grow out of that zone.
β
β
Rashedur Ryan Rahman
β
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.
β
β
Anthon St. Maarten
β
It is not as much about who you used to be, as it is about who you choose to be.
β
β
Sanhita Baruah
β
Everywhere we shine death and life burn into something newβ¦
β
β
Aberjhani (Elemental: The Power of Illuminated Love)
β
Convince yourself everyday that you are worthy of a good life. Let go of stress, breathe. Stay positive, all is well.
β
β
Germany Kent
β
Your strength doesn't come from winning. It comes from struggles and hardship. Everything that you go through prepares you for the next level.
β
β
Germany Kent
β
Don't live the same day over and over again and call that a life. Life is about evolving mentally, spiritually, and emotionally.
β
β
Germany Kent
β
Dream big. Wake up. Take the first step into the unknown.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett
β
First steps are always the hardest but until they are taken the notion of progress remains only a notion and not an achievement.
β
β
Aberjhani (Illuminated Corners: Collected Essays and Articles Volume I.)
β
If you wait until your motives are pure and unselfish before you do something, you will wait forever.
β
β
Timothy J. Keller (The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism)
β
Whatever your passion is, keep doing it. Don't waste time chasing after success or comparing yourself to others. Every flower blooms at a different pace. Excel at doing what your passion is and only focus on perfecting it. Eventually people will see what you are great at doing, and if you are truly great, success will come chasing after you.
β
β
Suzy Kassem (Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem)
β
As a means of motivating people to be cruel or inhumane-as a means of inciting evil, to borrow the vocabulary of the devout-there may be no more potent force than religion.
β
β
Jon Krakauer (Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith)
β
If the fire in your heart is strong enough, it will burn away any obstacles that come your way.
β
β
Suzy Kassem (Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem)
β
Easily mistaken, it is not about a love for adversity, it is about knowing a strength and a faith so great that adversity, in all its adverse manifestations, hardly even exists.
β
β
Criss Jami (Killosophy)
β
Faithfulness in small things leads to faithfulness in great things, and never the other way around.
β
β
Jerry L. Lewis (What God Can't Do: Keys to Prayer Power, Self Awareness, Love, Growth, Freedom, and Joy)
β
What hell condemned, let heaven now heal.
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β
Aberjhani (Collected Visions of a Skylark Dressed in Black)
β
Therefore it is unnecessary for a prince to have all the good qualities I have enumerated, but it is very necessary to appear to have them. And I shall dare to say this also, that to have them and always to observe them is injurious, and that to appear to have them is useful; to appear merciful, faithful, humane, religious, upright, and to be so, but with a mind so framed that should you require not to be so, you may be able and know how to change to the opposite.
β
β
NiccolΓ² Machiavelli (The Prince)
β
You are entitled to know that two entities occupy your body. One of these entities is motivated by and responds to the impulse of fear. The other is motivated by and responds to the impulse of faith. Will you be guided by faith or will you allow fear to overtake you?
β
β
Napoleon Hill (Outwitting the Devil: The Secret to Freedom and Success)
β
No one else knows exactly what the future holds for you, no one else knows what obstacles you've overcome to be where you are, so don't expect others to feel as passionate about your dreams as you do.
β
β
Germany Kent
β
Dreams dress us carefully in the colors of power and faith.
β
β
Aberjhani (I Made My Boy Out of Poetry)
β
You start to live when you commit your life to cause higher than yourself. You must learn to depend on divine power for the fulfillment of a higher calling.
β
β
Lailah GiftyAkita
β
Faith UP! Your purpose is GREATER than all your PROBLEMS.
β
β
John Paul Warren
β
Feet sandaled with dreams tread paths of vision leading to wisdomβs sharp peaks.
β
β
Aberjhani (The River of Winged Dreams)
β
Don't give up when dark times come. The more storms you face in life, the stronger you'll be. Hold on. Your greater is coming.
β
β
Germany Kent
β
You're going to make it;
You're going to be at peace;
You're going to create, and love, and laugh, and live;
You're going to do great things.
β
β
Germany Kent
β
faith removes limitations!
β
β
Napoleon Hill (Think and Grow Rich (Start Motivational Books))
β
The Lord would so cleanse the motive and desires of our hearts that we will seek but one thing only, and that is, His glory.
β
β
Smith Wigglesworth (Ever Increasing Faith)
β
Have faith in the universe and its capability to lead you to the path of abundance.
β
β
Stephen Richards (Think Your way to Success: Let Your Dreams Run Free)
β
When you encounter obstacles, donβt turn your back on them. Face them, confront them and your will see them dissolving in front of your eyes.
β
β
Roopleen (Words to inspire the winner in YOU)
β
Do you know where your breakthrough begins? Your breakthrough begins where your excuses ends.
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β
Patience Johnson (Why Does an Orderly God Allow Disorder)
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You will never get everything in life but you will get enough.
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β
Sanhita Baruah
β
Nobody thought it could be done, so nobody had tried before. Standing with one foot in the abyss and the other with a foothold in her dreams, she stood on the edge of a cliff. She took one look behind and with one last deep breath, she leapt with reckless certainty and decisive confidence. Blurring through the sky, for a moment she looked like she would fade into darkness, but in the very last moment when everyone else had given up on her, from her back spread wings. With a leap of faith, she learned to fly.
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β
Forrest Curran (Purple Buddha Project: Purple Book of Self-Love)
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Iβve learned that no matter how inspired, fired up and motivated you might be, the dark clouds will always set in
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β
Bernard Kelvin Clive (Your Dreams Will Not Die)
β
Faith keeps our ships moving, while empathy and the memories of our experiences lead to wisdom.
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Suzy Kassem (Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem)
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Each day gives the opportunity for you to be treated right, to feel worthy, and to be successful. Itβs a choice you have to make, a faith you have to embrace, and a standard you have to set.
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β
Steve Maraboli (Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience)
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The only way you're going to reach places you've never gone is if you trust God's direction to do things you've never done.
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Germany Kent
β
Know what you want and reach out eagerly for it.
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β
Lailah Gifty Akita (Pearls of Wisdom: Great mind)
β
If you can remember why you started, then you will know why you must continue.
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β
Chris Burkmenn
β
With God, you are stronger than your struggles and more fierce than your fears. God provides comfort and strength to those who trust in Him. Be encouraged, keep standing, and know that everything's going to be alright.
β
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Germany Kent
β
Without being push to the wall, we will have remained in our comfortable zone. But this circumstance challenges us to find the courage to move on.
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β
Lailah Gifty Akita (On Eagles Wings:Rise)
β
It is hard to see how a great man can be an atheist. Without the sustaining influence of faith in a divine power we could have little faith in ourselves. We need to feel that behind us is intelligence and love. Doubters do not achieve; skeptics do not contribute; cynics do not create. Faith is the great motive power, and no man realizes his full possibilities unless he has the deep conviction that life is eternally important, and that his work, well done, is a part of an unending plan.
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β
Calvin Coolidge
β
Every adversity brings new experiences and new lessons.
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β
Lailah Gifty Akita (Pearls of Wisdom: Great mind)
β
I have hope
in who I am becoming.
I have belief in every scar and disgraceful word
I have ever spoken
or been told
because it is still teaching me
and I have hope in who I am becoming.
They say it takes 756 days to run to someone you love
and they also say that the only romance worth fighting for
is the one with yourself
and I know by now
that they say a lot of things,
people talking everywhere
without saying a word,
but if it took me all those years to learn myself
or teach myself
how to look into the mirror
without breaking it
I know for a fact that it was a fight worth fighting.
I stood up for my own head and so did my heart
and we are coming to terms with ourselves.
Shaking hands, saying βletβs make this work
for we have places to go
and people to see
and we will need each otherβ
So I have hope
in who I am becoming.
Itβs July
and I have hope in who I am becoming.
β
β
Charlotte Eriksson
β
Embrace who you are and your divine purpose. Identify the barriers in your life, and develop discipline, courage and the strength to permanently move beyond them, and keep moving forward.
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β
Germany Kent
β
Similar to a butterfly, I've gone through a metamorphosis, been released from my dark cocoon, embraced my wings, and soared!
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Dana Arcuri (Reinventing You: Simple Steps to Transform Your Body, Mind, & Spirit)
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When you SEE into the invisible, you will DARE to do the impossible!
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John Paul Warren
β
Fight your battles through prayer,
And win your battles through faith.
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β
Luffina Lourduraj
β
Skepticism is my nature. Free Thought is my methodology. Agnosticism is my conclusion. Atheism is my opinion. Humanitarianism is my motivation.
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β
Jerry DeWitt (Hope after Faith: An Ex-Pastor's Journey from Belief to Atheism)
β
Today if anything is trying to hold you back, give no attention to it. Get your hopes up, get your faith up, look up, and get ready to rise up.
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Germany Kent
β
When in doubt, throw doubt out and have a little faith....
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β
E.A. Bucchianeri (Brushstrokes of a Gadfly (Gadfly Saga, #1))
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I live to inspire, not start the fire.
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β
Jonathan Anthony Burkett
β
I have cancer. Cancer doesn't have me.
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β
Marco Calderon
β
Inbetween yesterday's regret and tomorrow's dream is today's opportunity. Seize the chance!
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β
Ifeanyi Enoch Onuoha (Overcoming the Challenges of Life)
β
Hit the reset button. Whatever happened yesterday, forget about it. Get a new perspective. Today is a new day. Fresh start, begins now.
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β
Germany Kent
β
There is a dark side to religious devotion that is too often ignored or denied. As a means of motivating people to be cruel or inhumane, there may be no more potent force than religion. When the subject of religiously inspired bloodshed comes up, many Americans immediately think of Islamic fundamentalism, which is to be expected in the wake of 911. But men have been committing heinous acts in the name of God ever since mankind began believing in deities, and extremists exist within all religions. Muhammad is not the only prophet whose words have been used to sanction barbarism; history has not lacked for Christians, Jews, Hindus, Sikhs, and even Buddhists who have been motivated by scripture to butcher innocents. Plenty of these religious extremist have been homegrown, corn-fed Americans.
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β
Jon Krakauer (Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith)
β
Be around people that make you want to be a better person, who make you feel good, make you laugh, and remind you what's important in life.
β
β
Germany Kent
β
If you're not grateful for what you already have, why should you be blessed with more...
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β
Germany Kent
β
Preparation doesn't assures victory, it assures confidence.
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β
Amit Kalantri (Wealth of Words)
β
God wants to bless us in many ways that require faith. We must trust that He is answering our prayers even when we canβt see it.
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β
Stormie Omartian
β
If you wish to draw profit, read with humility, simplicity, and faith, and never with the design of gaining a reputation for learning.
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β
Thomas Γ Kempis (The Imitation of Christ)
β
you wonβt ever get ahead if you keep feeling sorry for yourself. You must stop all the negative talk and start thinking positive. You have a lot of potential but your life wonβt change until you change how you thinkβ.
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Michele Woolley (God's Favor - Breath Of Heaven)
β
Donβt do it! Donβt you dare think about giving up! EVERYTHING has a process. Work with the process, not against it. Move forward with purpose and never stop believing. You can do this! You know you can.
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β
Stephanie Lahart
β
Do not come into agreement with fear. Activate your faith, live in victory, speak over your life and expect great things to come your way.
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β
Germany Kent
β
Preparation time is necessary for your growth. Trust and believe everything you're going through is preparing you for some request you put out into the Universe.
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β
Germany Kent
β
The challenge of life is regretless decision making, relentless pursuit of vision with faith, forgiving others, enduring pain with a smile & achieving goals with an extra MILE
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β
Sujit Lalwani (Life Simplified!)
β
A man that knows your worth doesn't need to be told how to treat you. That's a given! You won't have to question his feelings, his motives, nor his intentions. How will I know? You ask. See, he will freely show you how he feels and prove it consistently. If you're settling for anything less than what you deserve. Then, maybe you don't even know your worth.
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β
Amaka Imani Nkosazana (Sweet Destiny)
β
Faithful people suffer and evil people prosper all the time [...]. Besides, if our actions are driven only by reward or punishment--eternal or otherwise--then they are motivated by greed and selfishness, not faith or love. That is where so many people go wrong, even those who say they believe [...]. They obey because the think it will make their *lives* better, rather than *themselves*. And that is very much the wrong reason.
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β
James Islington (The Light of All That Falls (The Licanius Trilogy, #3))
β
We all go through hard times in life. Itβs a part of being alive and it's the reality we all have to deal with. There are times we forget our value as a person because we are so blinded with these thoughts of loneliness, emptiness and ego. Somewhere along the road we become numbed with all the frustrations and dissatisfaction. But life itself isn't always about darkness and sadness, Life is also filled with colors and that makes it beautiful. Along this path of darkness there's always light waiting to be seen by our daunted hearts. Our heart is gifted to see this light. It may be hiding behind those circumstances that we encounter; in a stranger we just met at an unexpected place; a family who has been always there but you just ignored because of your imperfect relationship with them; it might be a long time friend you have or a friend you just met. Open your heart and you will see how blessed you are to have them all in your life. Sometimes they are the light that shines your path in some dark phases of life. Don't lose hope
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β
Chanda Kaushik
β
Talent isn't enough. You need motivation-and persistence, too: what Steinbeck called a blend of faith and arrogance. When you're young, plain old poverty can be enough, along with an insatiable hunger for recognition. You have to have that feeling of "I'll show them." If you don't have it, don't become a writer
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β
Leon Uris
β
People are often unreasonable, illogical and self-centered. Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies. Succeed anyway.
If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you. Be honest and frank anyway.
What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight. Build anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous. Be happy anyway.
The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow. Do good anyway.
Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough. Give your best anyway.
You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and your God. It was never between you and them anyway.
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β
Mother Teresa
β
Don't be discouraged if people don't see your vision, your harvest. All they see from their perspective is that you're watering a whole lot of dirt. They don't SEE what seeds you've been planting with blood, sweat, tears and lack of sleep. Make sure you don't abandon or neglect it because "they" don't see it. You have to KNOW and believe for yourself. They don't see the roots and what's budding under the dirt. But it's okay, because it's NOT meant for them to see it. While you wait, MASTER it. You continue to do YOUR work and have unwavering faith! Remember why you started planting in the first place. Your harvest WILL come!
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β
Yvonne Pierre (The Day My Soul Cried: A Memoir)
β
If I were your enemy, Iβd magnify your fears, making them appear insurmountable, intimidating you with enough worries until avoiding them becomes your driving motivation. I would use anxiety to cripple you, to paralyze you, leaving you indecisive, clinging to safety and sameness, always on the defensive because of what might happen. When you hear the word faith, all Iβd want you to hear is βunnecessary risk.
β
β
Priscilla Shirer (Fervent: A Woman's Battle Plan to Serious, Specific, and Strategic Prayer)
β
Call it dysphoric mania, agitated depression, or a mixed state: nobody will understand anyway. Mania and depression at once mean the will to die and the motivation to make it happen. This is why mixed states are the most dangerous periods of mood disorders. Tearfulness and racing thoughts happen. So do agitation and guilt, fatigue and morbidity and dread. Walking late at night, trying to get murdered, happens. Trying to explain a bipolar mixed state is like trying to explain the Holy Trinity, three persons in one God: you just have to take it on faith when I tell you that the poles bend, cross, never snapping.
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β
Elissa Washuta (My Body Is a Book of Rules)
β
My faith in the expertise of physicists like Richard Feynman, for instance, permits me to endorseβand, if it comes to it, bet heavily on the truth ofβa proposition that I don't understand. So far, my faith is not unlike religious faith, but I am not in the slightest bit motivated to go to my death rather than recant the formulas of physics. Watch: E doesn't equal mc2, it doesn't, it doesn't! I was lying, so there!
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β
Daniel C. Dennett (Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon)
β
It's my firm conclusion that human meaning comes from humans, not from a supernatural source. After we die, our hopes for an afterlife reside in the social networks that we influenced while we were alive. If we influence people in a positive way -- even if our social web is only as big as our nuclear family -- others will want to emulate us and pass on our ideas, manners, and lifestyle to future generations. This is more than enough motivation for me to do good things in my life and teach my children to do the same.
β
β
Greg Graffin (Anarchy Evolution: Faith, Science, and Bad Religion in a World Without God)
β
Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns in to universal, rather than religion-specific, values... it requires that their proposals be subject to argument and amenable to reason.
Now I may be opposed to abortion for religious reasons, to take one example, but if I seek to pass a law banning the practice, I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or evoke God's will. I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all.
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β
Barack Obama
β
For every person who closed the door in my face, thank you. For every person who told me I wasn't good enough, thank you. For every person who laughed and told me that I was wasting my time going to college, because I was going to fail, thank you. For every person who tried to break me, thank you. For every person who took my kindness for weakness, thank you. For every person who told me I was wasting time chasing my dreams because I would fail, thank you. It could of broke me. From the core of my heart, I thank you. I truly mean it, because if it weren't for each of you I wouldn't be who I am today. I wouldn't of spend hours and loss sleep studying. I wouldn't developed tough skin. You pushed me to think about what I "really" want out of life. You pushed me to master my craft. You helped me develop the drive, passion and determination. You pushed me to not wait for someone to believe in my vision, but to find a way to make things happen. I know you didn't "intend" to, but I thank you for teaching me to believe in myself! AND you taught me to TRUST in God and lean on my faith, not man. Thank You!
β
β
Yvonne Pierre (The Day My Soul Cried: A Memoir)
β
In the very act of writing I felt pleased with what I did. There was the pleasure of having words come to me, and the pleasure of ordering them, re-ordering them, weighing one against another. Pleasure also in the imagination of the story, the feeling that it could mean something. Mostly I was glad to find out that I could write at all. In writing you work toward a result you won't see for years, and can't be sure you'll ever see. It takes stamina and self-mastery and faith. It demands those things of you, then gives them back with a little extra, a surprise to keep you coming. It toughens you and clears your head. I could feel it happening. I was saving my life with every word I wrote, and I knew it.
β
β
Tobias Wolff (In Pharaoh's Army: Memories of the Lost War)
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For this reason a prince ought to take care that he never lets anything slip from his lips that is not replete with the above-named five qualities, that he may appear to him who sees and hears him altogether merciful, faithful, humane, upright, and religious. There is nothing more necessary to appear to have than this last quality, inasmuch as men judge generally more by the eye than by the hand, because it belongs to everybody to see you, to few to come in touch with you. Every one sees what you appear to be, few really know what you are, and those few dare not oppose themselves to the opinion of the many, who have the majesty of the state to defend them; and in the actions of all men, and especially of princes, which it is not prudent to challenge, one judges by the result.
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NiccolΓ² Machiavelli (The Prince)
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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 Iβm chained in hell or if Blakely develops a devilcraft prototype strong enough to kill me. When war between our races ignites, I donβt 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 donβt 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 archangelsβs 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. Youβll 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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All men seek happiness. This is without exception. Whatever different means they employ, they all tend to this end. The cause of some going to war, and of others avoiding it, is the same desire in both, attended with different views. The will never takes the least step but to this object. This is the motive of every action of every man, even of those who hang themselves.
And yet after such a great number of years, no one without faith has reached the point to which all continually look. All complain, princes and subjects, noblemen and commoners, old and young, strong and weak, learned and ignorant, healthy and sick, of all countries, all time, all ages, and all conditions.
A trial so long, so continuous, and so uniform should certainly convince us of our inability to reach the good by our own efforts.... What is it then that this desire and this inability proclaim to us, but that there was once in man a true happiness of which there now remains to him only; the mark and empty trace, which he in vain tries to fill from all his surroundings, seeking from things absent the help he does not obtain in things present? But these are all inadequate, because the infinite abyss can only be filled by an infinite and immutable Object, that is to say, only by God Himself.
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Blaise Pascal
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I think most historians would agree that the part played by impulses of selfish, individual aggression in the holocausts of history was small; first and foremost, the slaughter was meant as an offering to the gods, to king and country, or the future happiness of mankind. The crimes of a Caligula shrink to insignificance compared to the havoc wrought by Torquemada. The number of victims of robbers, highwaymen, rapists, gangsters and other criminals at any period of history is negligible compared to the massive numbers of those cheerfully slain in the name of the true religion, just policy or correct ideology. Heretics were tortured and burnt not in anger but in sorrow, for the good of their immortal souls. Tribal warfare was waged in the purported interest of the tribe, not of the individual. Wars of religion were fought to decide some fine point in theology or semantics. Wars of succession dynastic wars, national wars, civil wars, were fought to decide issues equally remote from the personal self-interest of the combatants.
Let me repeat: the crimes of violence committed for selfish, personal motives are historically insignificant compared to those committed ad majorem gloriam Dei, out of a self-sacrificing devotion to a flag, a leader, a religious faith or a political conviction. Man has always been prepared not only to kill but also to die for good, bad or completely futile causes. And what can be a more valid proof of the reality of the self-transcending urge than this readiness to die for an ideal?
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Arthur Koestler (The Ghost in the Machine)
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I figure...
...that the people are now more deeply conscious than ever before in history of the existence and functioning principles of universal, inexorable physical laws; of the pervading, quietly counseling truth within each and every one of us; of the power of love; and--each man by himself--of his own developing, dynamic relationship with his own conception of the Almightiness of the All-Knowing.
...that our contemporaries just don't wear their faith on their sleeves anymore.
...that people have removed faith from their sleeves because they found out for themselves that faith is much too important for careless display. Now they are willing to wait out the days and years for the truthful events, encouraged individually from within; and the more frequently the dramatic phrases advertising love, patriotism, fervent belief, morals, and good fellowship are plagiarized, appropriated and exhibited in the show windows of the world by the propaganda whips for indirect and ulterior motives, no matter how meager the compromise--the more do people withdraw within themselves and shun taking issue with the nauseating perversions, though eternally exhibiting quiet indifference, nonchalance or even cultivating seemingly ignorant acceptance.
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R. Buckminster Fuller
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The stakes involved in Washington policy debates are often so high-- whether we send our young men and women to war; whether we allow stem cell research to go forward-- that even small differences in perspective are magnified. The demands of party loyalty, the imperative of campaigns, and the amplification of conflict by the media all contribute to an atmosphere of suspicion. Moreover, most people who serve in Washington have been trained either as lawyers or as political operatives-- professions that tend to place a premium on winning arguments rather than solving problems. I can see how, after a certain amount of time in the capital, it becomes tempting to assume that those who disagree with you have fundamentally different values-- indeed, that they are motivated by bad faith, and perhaps are bad people.
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Barack Obama (The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream)