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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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The Paradoxical Commandments
People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered.
Love them anyway.
If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.
Do good anyway.
If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies.
Succeed anyway.
The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway.
Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.
Be honest and frank anyway.
The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds.
Think big anyway.
People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs.
Fight for a few underdogs anyway.
What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.
Build anyway.
People really need help but may attack you if you do help them.
Help people anyway.
Give the world the best you have and you'll get kicked in the teeth.
Give the world the best you have anyway.
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Kent M. Keith (The Silent Revolution: Dynamic Leadership in the Student Council)
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Be grateful for what you already have while you pursue your goals.
If you arenโt grateful for what you already have, what makes you think you would be happy with more.
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Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
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Letting go means to come to the realization that some people are a part of your history, but not a part of your destiny.
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Steve Maraboli
โ
Cry. Forgive. Learn. Move on. Let your tears water the seeds of your future happiness.
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Steve Maraboli
โ
Happiness is not the absence of problems, it's the ability to deal with them.
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Steve Maraboli (Life, the Truth, and Being Free)
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Sometimes life knocks you on your ass... get up, get up, get up!!! Happiness is not the absence of problems, it's the ability to deal with them.
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Steve Maraboli (Life, the Truth, and Being Free)
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Stop giving other people the power to control your happiness, your mind, and your life. If you don't take control of yourself and your own life, someone else is bound to try.
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Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
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I will not try to convince you to love me, to respect me, to commit to me. I deserve better than that; I AM BETTER THAN THAT...Goodbye.
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Steve Maraboli (Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience)
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Action may not always bring happiness, but there is no happiness without action.
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William James
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My past has not defined me, destroyed me, deterred me, or defeated me; it has only strengthened me.
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Steve Maraboli (Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience)
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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)
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Changing your outside world cannot make you happy if you are an unhappy person. The real personal change can only happen from the inside out. If you firstly create the change within yourself, you can turn your life around.
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Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
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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
โ
The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance. The wise grows it under his feet.
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James Oppenheim
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If you are not the hero of your own story, then you're missing the whole point of your humanity.
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Steve Maraboli (Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience)
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Be happy with who you are and what you do, and you can do anything you want.
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Steve Maraboli (Life, the Truth, and Being Free)
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If you've got nothing to dance about, find a reason to sing.
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Melody Carstairs
โ
Live life as though nobody is watching, and express yourself as though everyone is listening.
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Nelson Mandela
โ
The greatest love stories are not those in which love is only spoken, but those in which it is acted upon.
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Steve Maraboli (Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience)
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If you fuel your journey on the opinions of others, you are going to run out of gas.
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Steve Maraboli (Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience)
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Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen and six , result happiness.
Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery
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Charles Dickens (David Copperfield)
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Get Off The Scale!
You are beautiful. Your beauty, just like your capacity for life, happiness, and success, is immeasurable. Day after day, countless people across the globe get on a scale in search of validation of beauty and social acceptance.
Get off the scale! I have yet to see a scale that can tell you how enchanting your eyes are. I have yet to see a scale that can show you how wonderful your hair looks when the sun shines its glorious rays on it. I have yet to see a scale that can thank you for your compassion, sense of humor, and contagious smile. Get off the scale because I have yet to see one that can admire you for your perseverance when challenged in life.
Itโs true, the scale can only give you a numerical reflection of your relationship with gravity. Thatโs it. It cannot measure beauty, talent, purpose, life force, possibility, strength, or love. Donโt give the scale more power than it has earned. Take note of the number, then get off the scale and live your life. You are beautiful!
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Steve Maraboli (Life, the Truth, and Being Free)
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To live entirely without a goal! I have glimpsed this state, and have often attained it, without managing to remain there: I am too weak for such happiness.
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Emil M. Cioran
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When God takes out the trash, don't go digging back through it. Trust Him.
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Amaka Imani Nkosazana (Heart Crush)
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Do not sabotage your new relationship with your last relationshipโs poison.
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Steve Maraboli (Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience)
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What is a Wanderess? Bound by no boundaries, contained by no countries, tamed by no time, she is the force of natureโs course.
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Roman Payne (The Wanderess)
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When you are living the best version of yourself, you inspire others to live the best versions of themselves.
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Steve Maraboli (Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience)
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Every form of happiness is private. Our greatest moments are personal, self-motivated, not to be touched".
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Ayn Rand (The Fountainhead)
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The single greatest lesson the garden teaches is that our relationship to the planet need not be zero-sum, and that as long as the sun still shines and people still can plan and plant, think and do, we can, if we bother to try, find ways to provide for ourselves without diminishing the world.
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Michael Pollan (The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals)
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Just for the record: happiness is not bullshit.
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Andrew Sean Greer (Less)
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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)
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Listen to what is being preached today. Look at everyone around us. You've wondered why they suffer, why they seek happiness and never find it. If any man stopped and asked himself whether he's ever held a truly personal desire, he'd find the answer. He'd see that all his wishes, his efforts, his dreams, his ambitions are motivated by other men. He's not really struggling even for material wealth, but for the second-hander's delusion - prestige. A stamp of approval, not his own. He can find no joy in the struggle and no joy when he has succeeded. He can't say about a single thing: 'This is what I wanted because I wanted it, not because it made my neighbors gape at me'. Then he wonders why he's unhappy.
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Ayn Rand (The Fountainhead)
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Because when we give too many fucks, when we choose to give a fuck about everything, then we feel as though we are perpetually entitled to feel comfortable and happy at all times, thatโs when life fucks us.
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Mark Manson (The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life)
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You have a unique gift to offer this world. Be true to yourself, be kind to yourself, read and learn about everything that interests you and keep away from people who bring you down. When you treat yourself kindly and respect the uniqueness of those around you, you will be giving this world an amazing gift... YOU!
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Steve Maraboli (Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience)
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Life itself is simple...it's just not easy.
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Steve Maraboli (Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience)
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When you find yourself in need of spiritual nourishment, it is in the opportunities to serve others that you will find the abundance you seek.
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Steve Maraboli (Life, the Truth, and Being Free)
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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.
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Blaise Pascal
โ
Are you going to allow the world around you to change while you remain stagnant? Make this the time you throw away old habits that have hindered your happiness and success and finally allow your greatest self to flourish.
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Steve Maraboli (Life, the Truth, and Being Free)
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These illustrations suggest four general maxims[...].
The first is: remember that your motives are not always as altruistic as they seem to yourself.
The second is: don't over-estimate your own merits.
The third is: don't expect others to take as much interest in you as you do yourself.
And the fourth is: don't imagine that most people give enough thought to you to have any special desire to persecute you.
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Bertrand Russell (The Conquest of Happiness)
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Create. Not for the money. Not for the fame. Not for the recognition. But for the pure joy of creating something and sharing it.
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Ernest Barbaric
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Free yourself from the burden of feeling the need to hold on to anything. Let goโฆ you are a part of everything.
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Steve Maraboli (Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience)
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The more you talk about it, rehash it, rethink it, cross analyze it, debate it, respond to it, get paranoid about it, compete with it, complain about it, immortalize it, cry over it, kick it, defame it, stalk it, gossip about it, pray over it, put it down or dissect its motives it continues to rot in your brain. It is dead. It is over. It is gone. It is done. It is time to bury it because it is smelling up your life and no one wants to be near your rotted corpse of memories and decaying attitude. Be the funeral director of your life and bury that thing!
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Shannon L. Alder
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Learn from your history, but donโt live in it.
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Steve Maraboli
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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
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Germany Kent
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Write it on your heart you are the most beautiful soul of the Universe. Realize it, honor it and celebrate the life.
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Amit Ray (Nonviolence: The Transforming Power)
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If you want to find happiness, find gratitude.
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Steve Maraboli (Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience)
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The whole value of solitude depends upon oneself; it may be a sanctuary or a prison, a haven of repose or a place of punishment, a heaven or a hell, as we ourselves make it.
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John Lubbock (Peace and Happiness)
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Your life begins to change the day you take responsibility for it.
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Steve Maraboli (Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience)
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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.
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Rashedur Ryan Rahman
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Grateful souls focus on the happiness and abundance present in their lives and this in turn attracts more abundance and joy towards them.
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Stephen Richards (Think Your way to Success: Let Your Dreams Run Free)
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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
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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
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6 Ways To Give Your Mind A Break:
1. Stop stressing
2. Stop worrying
3. Give rest to the problems weighing you down
4. Lighten up
5. Forgive yourself
6. Forgive others
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Germany Kent
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The greatest win is walking away and choosing not to engage in drama and toxic energy at all.
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Lalah Delia
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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
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The universe doesn't give you what you want in your mind; it gives you what you demand with your actions.
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Steve Maraboli (Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience)
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Live Today! Do not allow your spirit to be softened of your happiness to be limited by a day you cannot have back or a day that does not yet exist.
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Steve Maraboli (Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience)
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Now is the time to get serious about living your ideals. How long can you afford to put off who you really want to be? Your nobler self cannot wait any longer. Put your principles into practice โ now. Stop the excuses and the procrastination. This is your life! You arenโt a child anymore. The sooner you set yourself to your spiritual program, the happier you will be. The longer you wait, the more youโll be vulnerable to mediocrity and feel filled with shame and regret, because you know you are capable of better. From this instant on, vow to stop disappointing yourself. Separate yourself from the mob. Decide to be extraordinary and do what you need to do โ now.
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Epictetus (The Art of Living: The Classical Manual on Virtue, Happiness and Effectiveness)
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Most of what passes for legitimate entertainment is inferior or foolish and only caters to or exploits people's weaknesses. Avoid being one of the mob who indulges in such pastimes. Your life is too short and you have important things to do. Be discriminating about what images and ideas you permit into your mind. If you yourself don't choose what thoughts and images you expose yourself to, someone else will, and their motives may not be the highest. It is the easiest thing in the world to slide imperceptibly into vulgarity. But there's no need for that to happen if you determine not to waste your time and attention on mindless pap.
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Epictetus (The Art of Living: The Classical Manual on Virtue, Happiness and Effectiveness)
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For what prevents us from saying that the happy life is to have a mind that is free, lofty, fearless and steadfast - a mind that is placed beyond the reach of fear, beyond the reach of desire, that counts virtue the only good, baseness the only evil, and all else but a worthless mass of things, which come and go without increasing or diminishing the highest good, and neither subtract any part from the happy life nor add any part to it?
A man thus grounded must, whether he wills or not, necessarily be attended by constant cheerfulness and a joy that is deep and issues from deep within, since he finds delight in his own resources, and desires no joys greater than his inner joys.
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Seneca (The Stoic Philosophy of Seneca: Essays and Letters)
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The value of a moment is immeasurable. The power of just ONE moment can propel you to success and happiness or chain you to failure and misery.
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Steve Maraboli (Life, the Truth, and Being Free)
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Synchronize each breath with the present moment and become intertwined with happiness. Breathing in, we are grateful for the opportunities that are given to us; breathing out, we let go of the depression and anxiety that hold us back.
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Forrest Curran (Purple Buddha Project: Purple Book of Self-Love)
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We can only aspire to become unshakable when we take ownership for our state of mind and how we feel about situations life hands out to us
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Purnachaitanya (Looking Inward: Meditating to Survive A Changing World)
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Stop waiting for the right person to come into your life. Be the right person to come to someoneโs life
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Leo Babauta
โ
People are often unreasonable, irrational, 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 unfaithful friends and some genuine enemies. Succeed anyway.
If you are honest and sincere people may deceive you. Be honest and sincere anyway.
What you spend years creating, others could destroy overnight. Create anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, some may be jealous. Be happy anyway.
The good you do today, will often be forgotten. Do good anyway.
Give the best you have, and it will never be enough. Give your best anyway.
In the final analysis, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.
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Kent M. Keith
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Depression weighs you down like a rock in a river. You don't stand a chance. You can fight and pray and hope you have the strength to swim, but sometimes, you have to let yourself sink. Because you'll never know true happiness until someone or something pulls you back out of that river--and you'll never believe it until you realize it was you, yourself who saved you.
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Alysha Speer
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Kindness is universal. Sometimes being kind allows others to see the goodness in humanity through you. Always be kinder than necessary.
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Germany Kent
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A woman must prefer her liberty over a man. To be happy, she must.
A man to be happy, however, must yearn for his woman more than his liberty.
This is the rightful order.
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Roman Payne (Hope and Despair)
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Free yourself from the complexities of your life! A life of simplicity and happiness awaits you.
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Steve Maraboli (Life, the Truth, and Being Free)
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Uneori uit unde mฤ aflu ลi zรขmbesc aลa, fฤrฤ motiv. Cรขteodatฤ sunt vesel. Vesel de tot. Pentru cฤ uit de mine. Mฤ pierd pe undeva, รฎn vreun loc depฤrtat, cum ai uita o carte pe fereastrฤ.
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Marin Sorescu
โ
What if I told you 10 years from now your life would be exactly the same?
Doubt you'd be happy.
So, why are you afraid of change?
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Karen Salmansohn
โ
You can't
stop dreaming
just because
the night never
seems to
end.
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Curtis Tyrone Jones
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Today, many will choose to live free of conditions and rules governing their own happiness. Why not you? Do not let another day go by where your dedication to other people's opinions is greater than your dedication to your own emotions! Today's a new day!
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Steve Maraboli (Life, the Truth, and Being Free)
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The power of "can't": The word "can't" makes strong people weak, blinds people who can see, saddens happy people, turns brave people into cowards, robs a genius of their brilliance, causes rich people to think poorly, and limits the achievements of that great person living inside us all.
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Robert T. Kiyosaki (Rich Dad's Who Took My Money?: Why Slow Investors Lose and Fast Money Wins!)
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Forget about self-image and self-judgment. It's about self-love, and no one teaches you that at school. No one teaches you that if you accept and love yourself, nothing and no one can touch you.
This is the only face and body you're ever going to get, so be comfortable and happy in it. Own it. Own every aspect of who you are and present it to the world with the utmost pride.
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Connor Franta (A Work in Progress)
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Should happiness and success be hidden, in view of the misery and poverty around. Would it be a sign of selfishness and un-intellectual behavior, if we admit to a pursuit of happiness? Could it, on the contrary, not work out as a motivation and an incentive? When giving voice to our happiness, could it not be perceived as a positive challenge? Could happiness not be contagious and become a salutary infectious syndrome? A beneficial infection. ( "Happy days are back again" )
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Erik Pevernagie
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With maps and globes decorated around your room as a child and with passport and ticket in hand in the present, it is your world to explore. To travel is to ask for a complex mix of the new and the old, hellos and goodbyes, and sadness and happiness. Leave your shoes behind at home and to walk in the footsteps of others for a while.
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Forrest Curran
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How would your life be different if...You decided to give freely, love fully, and play feverously? Let today be the day...You free yourself from the conditioned rules that limit your happiness and dilute the beautiful life experience. Have fun. Give - Love - Play!
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Steve Maraboli (The Power Of One)
โ
Sure, the Leaning Tower of Pisa leaned like everyone else said it would, the mountains of Tibet were more beautiful than you had ever expected, and the Pyramids of Egypt stood mysteriously in the sea of sand like in the pictures; yet is it the environment or rather the openness in mindset, that makes up the elusive essence of happiness that we experience when we travel?
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Forrest Curran
โ
No matter what you feel is holding you back in life, you can attempt anything.
Repeat that motivational cup sentence until it gets in your gut and doesnโt sound like something stupid on a Hallmark card, because it is the basis for anything that will make you happy in this world.
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Felicia Day (You're Never Weird on the Internet (Almost))
โ
Without the fear of occasional gaffes, the willingness to be perfectly imperfect, and the heart of a child who creates chaos first thing in the morning for a parent; you are not allowing our inner child to grow. You grow in pain, not in years, and you must cross the bridge without knowing of the pain, the tears, or the trials and tribulations that you will come to have to face, but sweet child of mine, stay the happy child of mine.
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Forrest Curran (Purple Buddha Project: Purple Book of Self-Love)
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Who says you need to wait until you 'feel like' doing something in order to start doing it? The problem, from this perspective, isn't that you don't feel motivated; it's that you imagine you need to feel motivated. If you can regard your thoughts and emotions about whatever you're procrastinating on as passing weather, you'll realise that your reluctance about working isn't something that needs to be eradicated or transformed into positivity. You can coexist with it. You can note the procrastinatory feelings and act anyway.
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Oliver Burkeman (The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking)
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Allowing both negative and positive thoughts to arise in life and acknowledging them for what they are, a secondary reaction within to what is happening outside, we grant our emotions free passage within without allowing external influences to impede our personal happiness. We cannot have control over everything that occurs in life, but that is simply not the goal, for we have control only over our relationship that we have with life.
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Forrest Curran
โ
So, kiss the girl. Buy the dress. Take a vacation. Join the circus. Order the fried frog legs. Try out for the play. Learn to snowboard. Do something that scares the shit out of you. Or something that makes you happy. Or something that makes you cry. Whatever it is, do something that makes you feel. Because feeling nothing is no way to go through life.
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โ
Valerie Thomas (From What I Remember...)
โ
In life hard times will befall you that will create doubt in yourself, and life will ask questions of the authenticity of the person you are. Carrying the lotus means being true to yourself and in the realization that you were always meant to grow above this mud. We are meant to grow, progress, and evolve in this relentless environment of the World and through it all achieve happiness with grace in letting go. Carry the Lotus within; grow and rise above from the harsh and remorseless world beneath you.
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Forrest Curran (Purple Buddha Project: Purple Book of Self-Love)
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Stop living within the confines of how others define you! You weren't created to live their life; you were created to live yours - so LIVE it! You can reignite that fire within and bring the passion back into your goals, dreams, ambitions, careers, and relationships by reclaiming control of your own life. Be unapologetically YOU!
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โ
Steve Maraboli (Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience)
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Not basing your principles of sex based on the judgment of other or on hearsay, uphold yourself to virtues that you believe in. Before any laws created by man, religion, and culture; the universe has always held us under the principles of love in all endeavors in life, and this applies to sex as well. Sex is a very personal experience and the morals you follow under this act are a personal notion that you create yourself for the sake of your personal happiness.
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Forrest Curran (Purple Buddha Project: Purple Book of Self-Love)
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Sometimes you're trying so hard to get your life together and still it's not enough, everything is falling apart. What to do, you're asking. Just keep going through hell for yourself, not for everyone else. Richer with that wisdom, I will build my happiness from nothing. I will rise from the dust. And I will do it on my own. I will live for myself and I wonโt look at the others.
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โ
Annette Dabrowska (Train to the Edge of the Moon)
โ
A great tree develops over time and can tell stories not only those of happiness, but also those that contain pain from what it has seen over the years, and as a result is the wise ancient tree that it is today. As the seasons change, the tree naturally goes through changes as well: where the leaves turn yellow and orange in the fall, falling by the Winter, returning in the Spring, and with full set of new leafs by the Summer. Love is no different in that there will be times when we are fully naked in the Winter, and left to wonder about Spring when it seemed so easy to love, yet the wise tree knows that no winter will last forever no matter how cold it may be.
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Forrest Curran (Purple Buddha Project: Purple Book of Self-Love)
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Every form of happiness is private. Our greatest moments are personal, self-motivated, not to be touched. The things which are sacred or precious to us are the things we withdraw from promiscuous sharing. But now we are taught to throw everything within us into public light and common pawing. To seek joy in meeting halls. We haven't even got a word for the quality I mean--for the self-sufficiency of man's spirit. It's difficult to call it selfishness or egotism, the words have been perverted, they've come to mean Peter Keating. Gail, I think the only cardinal evil on earth is that of placing your prime concern within other men. I've always demanded a certain quality in the people I liked. I've always recognized it at once--and it's the only quality I respect in men. I chose my friends by that. Now I know what it is. A self-sufficient ego. Nothing else matters.
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Ayn Rand
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Beauty meant that you were good. And being good meant being happy. Happiness can be defined all kinds of ways, but human beings, consciously or unconsciously, are always pulling for their own version of happiness. Even people who want to die see death as a kind of solace, and view ending their lives as the only way to make it there. Happiness is the base unit of consciousness, our single greatest motivator.
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Mieko Kawakami (Breasts and Eggs)
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Why are...poor people more ready to share their goods than rich people? The answer is easy: The poor have little to lose; the rich have more to lose and they are more attached to their possessions. Poverty provides a deeper motivation for understanding your neighbors, welcoming others and attending to those who are suffering. I would go so far as to say that poverty helps you understand what happiness is, what serenity is in life.
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Piero Gheddo
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Your life is your artwork and you are to paint life as a beautiful struggle. With your brush, paint the colors of joy in vibrant shades of red. Color the sky a baby blue, a color as free as your heart. With rich, earthy tones shade the valleys that run deep into the ground where heaven meets hell. Life is as chaotic as the color black, a blend of all colors, and this makes life a beautiful struggle. Be grateful for the green that makes up the beautiful canvas, for nature has given you everything that you need to be happy. Most of all, donโt ever feel the need to fill the entire canvas with paint, for the places left blank are the most honest expressions of who you are.
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Forrest Curran (Purple Buddha Project: Purple Book of Self-Love)
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There are only two ways to influence human behavior: you can manipulate it or you can inspire it.
Very few people or companies can clearly articulate WHY they do WHAT they do. By WHY I mean your purpose, cause or belief - WHY does your company exist? WHY do you get out of bed every morning? And WHY should anyone care?
People donโt buy WHAT you do, they buy WHY you do it.
We are drawn to leaders and organizations that are good at communicating what they believe. Their ability to make us feel like we belong, to make us feel special, safe and not alone is part of what gives them the ability to inspire us.
For values or guiding principles to be truly effective they have to be verbs. Itโs not โintegrity,โ itโs โalways do the right thing.โ Itโs not โinnovation,โ itโs โlook at the problem from a different angle.โ Articulating our values as verbs gives us a clear idea - we have a clear idea of how to act in any situation.
Happy employees ensure happy customers. And happy customers ensure happy shareholdersโin that order.
Leading is not the same as being the leader. Being the leader means you hold the highest rank, either by earning it, good fortune or navigating internal politics. Leading, however, means that others willingly follow youโnot because they have to, not because they are paid to, but because they want to.
You donโt hire for skills, you hire for attitude. You can always teach skills.
Great companies donโt hire skilled people and motivate them, they hire already motivated people and inspire them. People are either motivated or they are not. Unless you give motivated people something to believe in, something bigger than their job to work toward, they will motivate themselves to find a new job and youโll be stuck with whoeverโs left.
Trust is maintained when values and beliefs are actively managed. If companies do not actively work to keep clarity, discipline and consistency in balance, then trust starts to break down.
All organizations start with WHY, but only the great ones keep their WHY clear year after year.
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Simon Sinek (Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
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I didn't deserve Jeremy's kindness. I knew that. I suppose that was why I always questioned his motivation. In the beginning, every time he'd done something nice for me, I'd searched for a glimpse of evil behind the kindness, some nefarious motivation. After all, he was a monster. He had to be evil. When I'd realized there was nothing bad in Jeremy, I'd latched on to another excuse: that he was good to me because he was stuck with me, because he was a decent guy and maybe even because he felt some responsibility for what his ward had done to me. If he took me to Broadway plays and expensive dinners for two, it was because he wanted to keep me quiet and happy, not because he enjoyed my company. I wanted him to enjoy my company, but couldn't believe in it because I didn't see much in myself to warrant it.
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Kelley Armstrong (Bitten (Otherworld, #1))
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We all go through hard times in life. Itโs 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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Chanda Kaushik
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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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Mother Teresa
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A man worth being with is oneโฆ
That never lies to you
Is kind to people that have hurt him
A person that respects anotherโs 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 doesnโt blame others, but finds the good in them
That raises you up and motivates you to reach for the stars
That doesnโt need fame, money or anything materialistic to be happy
That is gentle and patient with children
Who wonโt 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 doesnโt hold a grudge or hold onto the past
Who doesnโt 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 doesnโt betray you by having inappropriate conversations with other women
Who doesnโt react when he is angry, decides when he is sad or keep promises he doesnโt plan to keep
Who takes his childrenโs 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 doesnโt play games or passive aggressively ignores people to hurt them
Who is real and doesnโt 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 doesnโt 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 doesnโt 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 donโt have in common donโt matter. This is the type of man worth being grateful for.
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Shannon L. Alder