Passion And Dedication Quotes

We've searched our database for all the quotes and captions related to Passion And Dedication. Here they are! All 100 of them:

Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable... Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals.
Martin Luther King Jr.
When God takes out the trash, don't go digging back through it. Trust Him.
Amaka Imani Nkosazana (Heart Crush)
The job is what you do when you are told what to do. The job is showing up at the factory, following instructions, meeting spec, and being managed. Someone can always do your job a little better or faster or cheaper than you can. The job might be difficult, it might require skill, but it's a job. Your art is what you do when no one can tell you exactly how to do it. Your art is the act of taking personal responsibility, challenging the status quo, and changing people. I call the process of doing your art 'the work.' It's possible to have a job and do the work, too. In fact, that's how you become a linchpin. The job is not the work.
Seth Godin (Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?)
When doing a job — any job — one must feel that he owns it, and act as though he will remain in that job forever.
Hyman G. Rickover
Dare to change the world There is nothing quixotic or romantic in wanting to change the world. It is possible. It is the age-old vocation of all humanity. I can't think of a better life than one dedicated to passion, to dreams, to the stubborness that defies chaos and disillusionment.
Gioconda Belli (The Country Under My Skin: A Memoir of Love and War)
At least I was true. My intellectual abilities gave me a release, and an excuse. I shunned company because I preferred books; and the dreams I confided to my father were of becoming a scholar in good earnest, and going to University. It was unheard-of several shocked governesses were only too quick to tell me, when I spoke a little too boldly -- but my father nodded and smiled and said, 'We'll see.' Since I believed my father could do anything -- except of course make me pretty -- I worked and studied with passionate dedication, lived in hope, and avoided society and mirrors.
Robin McKinley (Beauty: A Retelling of the Story of Beauty and the Beast)
Being passionate about something is the most beautiful characteristic you can develop.
Charlotte Eriksson
This book is dedicated to the people of America--strong, outspoken, intense in their convictions, sometimes wrong-headed but always generous and brave, with a passion for justice no nation has ever matched.
Paul Johnson (A History of the American People)
Tell yourself often: I am going to tackle my aspirations head on with the passion and dedication necessary to exceed even my expectations.
Lorii Myers (No Excuses, The Fit Mind-Fit Body Strategy Book (3 Off the Tee, #3))
The problem of society today: An absolute lifestyle of entitlement. People gauge everything by "feeling", meaning whatever they feel like doing or whatever they don't feel like doing. Passion is valued over dedication. Instant gratification is prized over true fulfillment. They don't know that more than feeling; intuition is the better key. They don't know that more than passion; fulfillment and dedication are the better keys. True passion will produce dedication and ultimately— fulfillment. If not, then it should not be called passion; it should just be called a lack of self control/ immaturity.
C. JoyBell C.
This book is dedicated to you. Whether you are a Minion or a Skuttlebug or just, you know, a normal person, it’s because of you that I get to do what I love and laughingly call it work. I know some of you by name and some of you by sight (and some of you by smell, but let’s not get into that) but there are still countless others I have never met, and to all of you I say thank you for your support, your passion, and your lunacy.
Derek Landy (Last Stand of Dead Men (Skulduggery Pleasant, #8))
If anything is worth doing then do it with all your dedication and passion, you never know what success it may bring to you. Think once! Follow your passion...
Bhawna Dehariya
I could feel his whole body trying to claim me, want me, own me in lust, and it made me feel so valuable and wanted. As I was bent over the table, I felt like I was the world to him, and he could think of nothing else, could feel nothing else: he was consumed with my body, dedicated to exploring my female sexual power and energy, and his desperate hitting of me with the belt felt like he would rather die, than be without the chance to connect with me in sex.
Fiona Thrust (Naked and Sexual (Fiona Thrust, #1))
Passionate hatreds can give meaning and purpose to an empty life. These people haunted by the purposelessness of their lives try to find a new content not only by dedicating themselves to a holy cause but also by nursing a fanatical grievance.
Eric Hoffer
A well-built physique is a status symbol. It reflects you worked hard for it, no money can buy it. You cannot inherit it. You cannot steal it. You cannot borrow it. You cannot hold on to it without constant work. It shows dedication. It shows discipline. It shows self-respect. It shows dignity. It shows patience, work ethic, passion. That is why it's attractive to me.
Pauline Nordin
You can resist the seductions of grandiosity, blame, and shame. You can support other people in their creative efforts, acknowledging the truth that there’s plenty of room for everyone. You can measure your worth by your dedication to your path, not by your successes or failures. You can battle your demons (through therapy, recovery, prayer, or humility) instead of battling your gifts—in part by realizing that your demons were never the ones doing the work, anyhow. You can believe that you are neither a slave to inspiration nor its master, but something far more interesting—its partner—and that the two of you are working together toward something intriguing and worthwhile. You can live a long life, making and doing really cool things the entire time. You might earn a living with your pursuits or you might not, but you can recognize that this is not really the point. And at the end of your days, you can thank creativity for having blessed you with a charmed, interesting, passionate existence.
Elizabeth Gilbert (Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear)
Everyone can rise above their circumstances and achieve success if they are dedicated to and passionate about what they do.
Nelson Mandela
Success is not the result of making one good choice, of taking one step. Real success requires step, after step, after step, after step. It requires choice after choice, it demands life-long education and passion and commitment and persistence and hunger and patience.
Jesmyn Ward (Navigate Your Stars)
Third, there is the New York of the person who was born somewhere else and came to New York in quest of something. Of these three trembling cities the greatest is the last--the city of final destination, the city that is a goal. It is this third city that accounts for New York's high-strung disposition, its poetical deportment, its dedication to the arts, and its incomparable achievements. Commuters give the city its tidal restlessness; natives give it solidity and continuity; but the settlers give it passion.
E.B. White (Here Is New York)
Journey through the Power of the Rainbow represents a condensed compendium of literary efforts from a life dedicated to transforming the themes of injustice, grief, and despair that we all encounter during some unavoidable point of our existence into a sustainable life-affirming poetics of passionate creativity, empowered spiritual vision, and inspired commitment.
Aberjhani (Journey through the Power of the Rainbow: Quotations from a Life Made Out of Poetry)
A true mother is known for her compassion, love and passion; she is everly dedicated to her calling.
Jaachynma N.E. Agu
The proud tower built up through the great age of European civilization was an edifice of grandeur and passion, of riches and beauty and dark cellars. Its inhabitants lived, as compared to a later time, with more self-reliance, more confidence, more hope; greater magnificence, extravagance and elegance; more careless ease, more gaiety, more pleasure in each other's company and conversation, more injustice and hypocrisy, more misery and want, more sentiment including false sentiment, less sufferance of mediocrity, more dignity in work, more delight in nature, more zest. The Old World had much that has since been lost, whatever may have been gained. Looking back on it from 1915, Emile Verhaeren, the Belgian Socialist poet, dedicated his pages, "With emotion, to the man I used to be.
Barbara W. Tuchman (The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914)
Today, I celebrate my Mother. Strong, passionate, stubborn and proud. An educator, and wife. She was both fearless and vulnerable, unashamed of either. She demanded the best, especially of me. I dedicate my life to exceeding her highest expectations. This is how I honor my Mother, my friend, my inspiration. In spirit she forever guides me. Thank you momma, for I am never lost.
Carlos Wallace
Persistence in the face of failure is of course important, but it is not the same thing as dedication or passion. Persistence is a discipline that you learn; devotion is a dedication you can't ignore.
Stuart Firestein
Dedicate yourself above all else to becoming the-best-version-of-yourself. It is the best thing you can do for your spouse, your children, your friends, your colleagues, your employees, your employer, your church, your nation, the human family, and yourself.
Matthew Kelly (The Rhythm of Life: Living Everyday With Passion and Purpose)
Literature is as old as speech. It grew out of human need for it and it has not changed except to become more needed. The skalds, the bards, the writers are not separate and exclusive. From the beginning, their functions, their duties, and their responsibilities have been decreed by our species... the writer is delegated to declare and to celebrate man's proven capacity for greatness of heart and spirit - for gallantry in defeat, for courage, compassion and love. In the endless war against weakness and despair, these are the bright rally flags of hope and of emulation. I hold that a writer who does not passionately believe in the perfectibility of man has no dedication nor any membership in literature.
John Steinbeck
This book is dedicated to all the women—and men—who know that the human desire for romance, love, and sexual passion has nothing to do with age.
Pamela Clare (Soul Deep (I-Team, #6.5))
God is my strength and my defense. When I am weak, he makes me strong. When I am broken, he makes me whole.
Amaka Imani Nkosazana (Sweet Destiny)
You have a dedication to life and truth that burns out of you as beauty and I envy it so much I want to be around it for the rest of my life.
Trevor D. Richardson (Dystopia Boy: The Unauthorized Files)
5 D's of success - Dream, Desire, Determination, Discipline and Dedication
Prakash Vir Sharma (Mindset And Passion)
It is only our dedication towards our passion that distinguishes a champion from the crowd.
Abhijit Naskar (Lord is My Sheep: Gospel of Human)
Playing an instrument says you have passion. Taking the time to teach someone else, especially someone younger, says you’re not only sweet, but patient. It told me you obviously like music. Musicians typically appreciate all music, so it told me you were more open. The fact that your little brother thought you were good meant you’re dedicated. And the way he looked at you, like you hung the moon, spoke loudest of all. It told me that someone loved you. That you had to be a good person to have so much respect from your brother when most brothers can’t seem to get along. It told me you were special.
Cheryl McIntyre (Sometimes Never (Sometimes Never, #1))
The theatre is a tragic place, full of endings and partings and heartbreak. You dedicate yourself passionately to something, to a project, to people, to a family, you think of nothing else for weeks and months, then suddenly it's over, it's perpetual destruction, perpetual divorce, perpetual adieu. It's like éternel retour, it's a koan. It's like falling in love and being smashed over and over again.’ 'You do, then, fall in love.’ 'Only with fictions, I love players, but actors are so ephemeral. And then there’s waiting for the perfect part, and being offered it the day after you've committed yourself to something utterly rotten. The remorse, and the envy and the jealousy. An old actor told me if I wanted to stay in the trade I had better kill off envy and jealousy at the start.
Iris Murdoch (The Green Knight)
If you’re an adrenaline junkie, I understand why you’d find that exciting. But I’m not, and I don’t. To me, the only good reason to take a risk is that there’s a decent possibility of a reward that outweighs the hazard. Exploring the edge of the universe and pushing the boundaries of human knowledge and capability strike me as pretty significant rewards, so I accept the risks of being an astronaut, but with an abundance of caution: I want to understand them, manage them and reduce them as much as possible. It’s almost comical that astronauts are stereotyped as daredevils and cowboys. As a rule, we’re highly methodical and detail-oriented. Our passion isn’t for thrills but for the grindstone, and pressing our noses to it. We have to: we’re responsible for equipment that has cost taxpayers many millions of dollars, and the best insurance policy we have on our lives is our own dedication to training. Studying, simulating, practicing until responses become automatic—astronauts don’t do all this only to fulfill NASA’s requirements. Training is something we do to reduce the odds that we’ll die.
Chris Hadfield (An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth)
The most important role of managers is to create an environment in which people are passionately dedicated to winning in the marketplace. Fear plays a major role in creating and maintaining such passion. Fear of competition, fear of bankruptcy, fear of being wrong and fear of losing can all be powerful motivators.
Andrew S. Grove (Only the Paranoid Survive)
We don't want to admit that we do not stand alone, that we always rely on something that transcends us, some system of ideas and powers in which we are embedded and which support us. This power is not always obvious. It need not be overtly a god or openly a stronger person, but it can be the power of an all-absorbing activity, a passion, a dedication to a game, a way of life, that like a comfortable web keeps a person buoyed up and ignorant of himself, of the fact that he does not rest on his own center. All of us are driven to be supported in a self-forgetful way, ignorant of what energies we really draw on, of the kind of lie we have fashioned in order to live securely and serenely. Augustine was a master analyst of this, as were Kierkegaard, Scheler, and Tillich in our day. They saw that man could strut and boast all he wanted, but that he really drew his "courage to be" from a god, a string of sexual conquests, a Big Brother, a flag, the proletariat, and the fetish of money and the size of a bank balance.
Ernest Becker (The Denial of Death)
Why I am Passionate and Dedicated 1000% to producing and bringing my books Loving Summer, Bitter Frost, and other book series to the Screen is because these are the very books that I was cyber-bullied on. When confronted by bullies, you don't shy away, but you Fight Back. Many people have not read the books, but believe fake news and damaging slanders against them and me as a person because it was a marketing strategy used to sell my books' rival books. By bringing these very books to the screen, people can see how different my books are to theirs. Also, most of all, it is pretty darn fun and fierce for me, as a female Asian writer, director, and producer to bring these fan favorite books to screen.
Kailin Gow (Loving Summer (Loving Summer, #1))
The more you try to force it, I learned, the less likely you are to succeed. True missions, it turns out, require two things. First you need career capital, which requires patience. Second, you need to be ceaselessly scanning your always-changing view of the adjacent possible in your field, looking for the next big idea. This requires a dedication to brainstorming and exposure to new ideas. Combined, these two commitments describe a lifestyle, not a series of steps that automatically spit out a mission when completed.
Cal Newport (So Good They Can't Ignore You: Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work You Love)
As I have earlier noted, the most important things in life and in business can’t be measured. The trite bromide 'If you can measure it, you can manage it' has been a hindrance in the building a great real-world organization, just as it has been a hindrance in evaluating the real-world economy. It is character, not numbers, that make the world go ‘round. How can we possibly measure the qualities of human existence that give our lives and careers meaning? How about grace, kindness, and integrity? What value do we put on passion, devotion, and trust? How much do cheerfulness, the lilt of a human voice, and a touch of pride add to our lives? Tell me, please, if you can, how to value friendship, cooperation, dedication, and spirit. Categorically, the firm that ignores the intangible qualities that the human beings who are our colleagues bring to their careers will never build a great workforce or a great organization.
John C. Bogle (Enough: True Measures of Money, Business, and Life)
We live in a multidimensional world. Why would you live a one-dimensional love? If you love someone... feel it, speak it, show it, be it.Do more than tell them… show them. Let them feel your dedicated respect and your unwavering devotion. Ensure that your commitment and passion are known and unquestionable. Show them what they mean to you… what they are to you. And… if you don’t feel inspired to show your love in this multidimensional manner… be kind enough to let them go… so they can find someone who will.
Steve Maraboli
Selfish Dreamscapes If you have a dream, as you should, relish in being selfish about building every passionate aspect of it. The crowd of spectators and consumers will still be exactly where you left them... gossiping about everybody else's dream but their own.
T.F. Hodge (From Within I Rise: Spiritual Triumph over Death and Conscious Encounters With the Divine Presence)
A reporter once asked me why I think progressive men who earn significantly less than their breadwinning wives still won't quit their jobs to take care of their children. Why do they still hold on to their careers, even if taking care of the children would make more financial sense because the cost of childcare is higher than their net salary? I think I know the answer to that now, and it sucks. Women are not expected to live a life for themselves. When women dedicate their lives to children, it is deemed a worthy and respectable choice. When women dedicate themselves to a passion outside of the family that doesn't involve worshiping their husbands or taking care of their kids, they're seen as selfish, cold, or unfit mothers. But when a man spends hours grueling over a craft, profession, or project, he's admired and seen as a genius. And when a man finds a woman who worships him, who dedicates her life to serving him, he's lucky. But when a man dedicates himself to taking care of his children it's seen as a last resort. That it must be because he ran out of other options. That it's plan Z. That it's an indicator of his inability to provide for his family. Basically, that he's a fucking loser. I think it's one of the most important falsehoods we need to shatter when talking about women's rights.
Ali Wong (Dear Girls: Intimate Tales, Untold Secrets, & Advice for Living Your Best Life)
Margery," I blurted out in a passion of frustration. "I don't know what to make of you!" Nor I you, Mary. Frankly, I cannot begin to comprehend the motives of a person who dedicates a large portion of her life to the contemplation of a God in whom she only marginally believes." I felt stunned, as if she had struck me in the diaphragm. She looked down at me, trying to measure the effect of her words. Mary, you believe in the power that the idea of God has on the human mind. You believe in the way human beings talk about the unknowable, reach for the unattainable, pattern their imperfect lives and offer their paltry best up to the beingless being that created the universe and powers its continuation. What you balk as it believing the evidence of your eyes, that God can reach out and touch a single human life in a concrete way." She smiled a sad, sad smile. "You mustn't be so cold, Mary. If you are, all you will see is a cold God, cold friends, cold love. God is not cold-never cold. God sears with heat, not ice, the heat of a thousand suns, heat that inflames but does not consume. You need warmth, Mary-you, Mary, need it. You fear it, you flirt with it, you imagine that you can stand in its rays and retain your cold intellectual attitude towards it. You imagine that you can love with your brain. Mary, oh my dear Mary, you sit in the hall and listen to me like some wild beast staring at a campfire, unable to leave, fearful of losing your freedom if you come any closer. It won't consume you; I won't capture you. Love does not do either. It only brings life. Please, Mary, don't let yourself be tied up by the bonds of cold academia." Her words, the power of her conviction, broke over me like a great wave, inundating me, robbing me of breath, and, as they receded in the room, they pulled hard at me to folllow. I struggled to keep my footing against the wash of Margery's vision, and only when it began to lose its strength, dissipated against the silence in the room, was I seized by a sudden terror at the nearness of my escape.
Laurie R. King (A Monstrous Regiment of Women (Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes, #2))
Be kind to one another and seek beauty in all you do.
Bryant McGill (Voice of Reason)
Purposefully dedicating time into developing yourself is one of the keys to being effective in life
Sunday Adelaja
It takes more than dreams to get one to greatness. One's passion, dedication & work ethics will always help soar them to greater heights!
Timothy Pina
While you spend minutes, hours, days, and even years toiling away at a job that you’re not 100% passionate about, precious time that you could be dedicating to your own dreams dwindles away.
Mandy Hale (The Single Woman's Sassy Survival Guide: Letting Go and Moving On)
Archivists were passionate people, some of whom dedicated their whole lives to the pursuit of unbiased truth. Given the wealth of information that needed sorting through, professional archivists relied heavily upon volunteers to help keep public files current. Rosemary had always imagined them like guardians from some fantasy vid, defending the galaxy from inaccuracies and questionable data. ‘What
Becky Chambers (The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet (Wayfarers, #1))
More than 2,000 books are dedicated to how Warren Buffett built his fortune. Many of them are wonderful. But few pay enough attention to the simplest fact: Buffett’s fortune isn’t due to just being a good investor, but being a good investor since he was literally a child. As I write this Warren Buffett’s net worth is $84.5 billion. Of that, $84.2 billion was accumulated after his 50th birthday. $81.5 billion came after he qualified for Social Security, in his mid-60s. Warren Buffett is a phenomenal investor. But you miss a key point if you attach all of his success to investing acumen. The real key to his success is that he’s been a phenomenal investor for three quarters of a century. Had he started investing in his 30s and retired in his 60s, few people would have ever heard of him. Consider a little thought experiment. Buffett began serious investing when he was 10 years old. By the time he was 30 he had a net worth of $1 million, or $9.3 million adjusted for inflation.16 What if he was a more normal person, spending his teens and 20s exploring the world and finding his passion, and by age 30 his net worth was, say, $25,000? And let’s say he still went on to earn the extraordinary annual investment returns he’s been able to generate (22% annually), but quit investing and retired at age 60 to play golf and spend time with his grandkids. What would a rough estimate of his net worth be today? Not $84.5 billion. $11.9 million. 99.9% less than his actual net worth. Effectively all of Warren Buffett’s financial success can be tied to the financial base he built in his pubescent years and the longevity he maintained in his geriatric years. His skill is investing, but his secret is time. That’s how compounding works. Think of this another way. Buffett is the richest investor of all time. But he’s not actually the greatest—at least not when measured by average annual returns.
Morgan Housel (The Psychology of Money)
Women are not expected to live a life for themselves. When women dedicate their lives to children, it is deemed a worthy and respectable choice. When women dedicate themselves to a passion outside of the family that doesn’t involve worshipping their husbands or taking care of their kids, they’re seen as selfish, cold, or unfit mothers. But when a man spends hours grueling over a craft, profession, or project, he’s admired and seen as a genius. And when a man finds a woman who worships him, who dedicates her life to serving him, he’s lucky. But when a man dedicates himself to taking care of his children it’s seen as a last resort. That it must be because he ran out of other options. That it’s plan Z. That it’s an indicator of his inability to provide for his family. Basically, that he’s a fucking loser.
Ali Wong (Dear Girls: Intimate Tales, Untold Secrets, and Advice for Living Your Best Life)
What is love? Is it a lightning bolt that instantaneously unites two souls in utter infatuation and admiration through the meeting of a simple innocent stare? Or is it a lustful seed that is sown in a dark dingy bar one sweaty summer's night only to be nurtured with romantic rendezvous as it matures into a beautiful flower? Is it a river springing forth, creating lifelong bonds through experiences, heartaches, and missed opportunities? Or is it a thunderstorm that slowly rolls in, climaxing with an awesome display of unbridled passion, only to succumb to its inevitable fade into the distance? I define love as education.... It teaches us to learn from our opportunities, and made the stupidest of decisions for the rightest of reasons. It gives us a hint of what "it" should be and feel like, but then encourages us to think outside the box and develop our own understanding of what "it" could be. Those that choose to embrace and learn from love's educational peaks and valleys are the ones that will eventually find true love, that one in a million. Those that don't are destined to be consumed with the inevitable ring around the rosy of fake I love you's and failed relationships. I have been lucky enough to have some of the most amazing teachers throughout my romantic evolution and it is to them that I dedicate this book. The lessons in life, passion and love they taught me have helped shape who I am today and who I will be tomorrow. To the love that stains my heart, but defines my soul....I thank you.....
Ivan Rusilko (Appetizers (The Winemaker's Dinner, #1))
A cross between a foreign legion boot-camp and a secret-society initiation ritual, the ordeals were grounded in pain. One thing was obvious: the agenda, which was dedicated to grave discomfort, had been drawn up by a passionate sadist.
Tahir Shah (Sorcerer's Apprentice)
Nihilistic passion, adding to falsehood and injustice, destroys in its fury its original demands and thus deprives rebellion of its most cogent reasons. It kills in the fond conviction that this world is dedicated to death. The consequence of rebellion, on the contrary, is to refuse to legitimize murder because rebellion, in principle, is a protest against death.
Albert Camus (The Rebel)
This love frightens me, it causes me fear and ecstasy and pain and a thousand other things I never knew I could feel. It terrifies me, leaves me wounded and open and vulnerable. But I want you to know it exists. And I want you to know that if there ever comes a day in your life when you want my love, then it is here. I will be here. Always. That is all I want you to know.
Sherryl Jordan (Winter of Fire)
When you actively turn your thoughts to all the bad consequences of the desires as they arise in you, the passion for them gradually dries up. As your passion diminishes, your mind comes under control. Firm, dedicated faith (sraddha) brings you the raw force of determination, will.
Jack Hawley (The Bhagavad Gita: A Walkthrough for Westerners)
The revolutionary is a dedicated man. He has no personal interests, no private affairs, no emotions, no attachments, no property and no name. Everything in him is subordinated towards a single thought, a single passion: the Revolution.’ Sergei Nechayev, The Revolutionary Catechism, 1869
Victor Sebestyen (Lenin: The Man, the Dictator, and the Master of Terror)
So the women would not forgive. Their passion remained intact, carefully guarded and nurtured by the bitter knowledge of all they had lost, of all that had been stolen from them. For generations they vilified the Yankee race so the thief would have a face, a name, a mysterious country into which he had withdrawn and from which he might venture again. They banded together into a militant freemasonry of remembering, and from that citadel held out against any suggestion that what they had suffered and lost might have been in vain. They created the Lost Cause, and consecrated that proud fiction with the blood of real men. To the Lost Cause they dedicated their own blood, their own lives, and to it they offered books, monographs, songs, acres and acres of bad poetry. They fashioned out of grief and loss an imaginary world in which every Southern church had stabled Yankee horses, every nick in Mama's furniture was made by Yankee spurs, every torn painting was the victim of Yankee sabre - a world in which paint did not stick to plaster walls because of the precious salt once hidden there; in which bloodstains could not be washed away and every other house had been a hospital.
Howard Bahr (The Black Flower: A Novel of the Civil War)
Is it really true that the only good thing a Blackman can offer in a relationship with a white woman is thunderous sex? Of course, sex plays a vital healing role in every loving relationship. That is a fact of life. But, as we discover in the story of Glasgow Kiss, sex is not always the only thing that occupies a Blackman’s mind. On the contrary, when a man is as passionate, dedicated, committed and determined as Mamadu is to fight and hold onto his true love, irrespective of the numerous challenges he faces, he is able show that it is far more important to pay attention to his heartbeat than the growing erection in his trousers!
Frank McChebe (Glasgow Kiss)
The best warrior is dedicated and passionate yet clearheaded. It is not about revenge or victory. It is about honor.
K.L. Armstrong (Thor's Serpents (The Blackwell Pages #3))
Passion is a foundation, not a guarantee, of greatness.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
I want to know what your life is dedicated to. What do you love more than your own happiness or your own pain?
Oriah Mountain Dreamer (The Invitation)
To be loyal, it will require a dedication only you can provide. And when you begin to feel withdrawn, it may be that your passion, in your dedication, has run its course.
Steven Cuoco
The greatest tool we have for tackling our grand challenges is the passionate and dedicated human mind.
Peter H. Diamandis
the people you will most enjoy spending time with are not those who agree with you in everything you say and tell you that you should be a little easier on yourself…and have that second slice of cheesecake! If you are dedicated to your essential purpose, the people you will want to surround yourself with are people who inspire and challenge you to become the-best-version-of-yourself. The
Matthew Kelly (The Rhythm of Life: Living Everyday With Passion and Purpose)
Failure is also a test of dedication. It is a way to measure what you are passionate about and how deep that passion runs and how dependable it is. Science may seem methodical but it demands passion.
Stuart Firestein (Failure: Why Science Is So Successful)
To succeed we need committment, discipline, dedication, and determination. And if you can amalgamate all of the above qualities with your passion and energy then no one can stop you from achieving the uncommon!
Avijeet Das
Carnality can take many forms. Often these are obvious and unappealing to people with a religious outlook. Some typical examples would be: sexual uncleanness or immorality; vulgar language; overindulgence in food or drink; driving personal ambition; uncontrolled anger or other evil passions. What makes legalism especially dangerous is that it appeals to earnest, dedicated men and women who would not easily be entrapped by these more obvious sins of the flesh. Yet in its final consequences, legalism is just as deadly as other, less “respectable” sins. It is Satan’s favorite tool to divert Christians who could otherwise become a serious threat to his kingdom. For
Derek Prince (Blessing or Curse: You Can Choose (Freedom from Pressures You Thought You Had to Live With) (Includes Study Guide for Small Group or Individual Use))
True missions, it turns out, require two things. First you need career capital, which requires patience. Second, you need to be ceaselessly scanning your always-changing view of the adjacent possible in your field, looking for the next big idea. This requires a dedication to brainstorming and exposure to new ideas. Combined, these two commitments describe a lifestyle, not a series of steps that automatically spit out a mission when completed.
Cal Newport (So Good They Can't Ignore You: Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work You Love)
These women are, quite simply, alive; they know that the source of true values is not in external things but in human hearts. This gives its charm to the world they live in: they banish ennui by the simple fact of their presence, with their dreams, their desires, their pleasures, their emotions, their ingenuities. The sanseverina, that 'active soul' dreads ennui more than death. To stagnate in ennui 'is to keep from dying, she said, not to live'; she is ' always impassioned over something, always in action and gay too '. Thoughtless, childish or profound, gay or grave, daring or secretive, they all reject the heavy sleep in which humanity is mired. And these women who have been able to maintain their liberty- empty as it has been- will rise through passion to heroism once they find an objective worthy of them; their spiritual power, their energy, suggest the fierce purity of total dedication
Simone de Beauvoir
I don’t remember when I stopped noticing—stopped noticing every mirror, every window, every scale, every fast-food restaurant, every diet ad, every horrifying model. And I don’t remember when I stopped counting, or when I stopped caring what size my pants were, or when I started ordering what I wanted to eat and not what seemed “safe,” or when I could sit comfortably reading a book in my kitchen without noticing I was in my kitchen until I got hungry—or when I started just eating when I got hungry, instead of questioning it, obsessing about it, dithering and freaking out, as I’d done for nearly my whole life. I don’t remember exactly when recovery took hold, and went from being something I both fought and wanted, to being simply a way of life. A way of life that is, let me tell you, infinitely more peaceful, infinitely happier, and infinitely more free than life with an eating disorder. And I wouldn’t give up this life of freedom for the world. What I know is this: I chose recovery. It was a conscious decision, and not an easy one. That’s the common denominator among people I know who have recovered: they chose recovery, and they worked like hell for it, and they didn’t give up. Recovery isn’t easy, at first. It takes time. It takes more work, sometimes, than you think you’re willing to do. But it is worth every hard day, every tear, every terrified moment. It’s worth it, because the trade-off is this: you let go of your eating disorder, and you get back your life. There are a couple of things I had to keep in mind in early recovery. One was that I was going to recover, even though I didn’t feel “ready.” I realized I was never going to feel ready—I was just going to jump in and do it, ready or not, and I am deeply glad that I did. Another was that symptoms were not an option. Symptoms, as critically necessary and automatic as they feel, are ultimately a choice. You can choose to let the fallacy that you must use symptoms kill you, or you can choose not to use symptoms. Easier said than done? Of course. But it can be done. I had to keep at the forefront of my mind the reasons I wanted to recover so badly, and the biggest one was this: I couldn’t believe in what I was doing anymore. I couldn’t justify committing my life to self-destruction, to appearance, to size, to weight, to food, to obsession, to self-harm. And that was what I had been doing for so long—dedicating all my strength, passion, energy, and intelligence to the pursuit of a warped and vanishing ideal. I just couldn’t believe in it anymore. As scared as I was to recover, to recover fully, to let go of every last symptom, to rid myself of the familiar and comforting compulsions, I wanted to know who I was without the demon of my eating disorder inhabiting my body and mind. And it turned out that I was all right. It turned out it was all right with me to be human, to have hungers, to have needs, to take space. It turned out that I had a self, a voice, a whole range of values and beliefs and passions and goals beyond what I had allowed myself to see when I was sick. There was a person in there, under the thick ice of the illness, a person I found I could respect. Recovery takes time, patience, enormous effort, and strength. We all have those things. It’s a matter of choosing to use them to save our own lives—to survive—but beyond that, to thrive. If you are still teetering on the brink of illness, I invite you to step firmly onto the solid ground of health. Walk back toward the world. Gather strength as you go. Listen to your own inner voice, not the voice of the eating disorder—as you recover, your voice will get clearer and louder, and eventually the voice of the eating disorder will recede. Give it time. Don’t give up. Love yourself absolutely. Take back your life. The value of freedom cannot be overestimated. It’s there for the taking. Find your way toward it, and set yourself free.
Marya Hornbacher
The only manner to blunt in a wholesome and righteous manner the emotional trauma of living under a death sentence is by making every day count, living passionately, and dedicating the journey stumbling through time to accomplishing a master life plan. We can assist each other find meaning in life and undertake a path that make every person’s life a worthy endeavor, but each person bears the personal responsibility for living their life, establishing who they are, and behaving in a manner that provides credence to their self-imposed ideology. If a person persists in shifting personal responsibility for their way of life onto someone else, they he or she fails to discover the meaning of his own existence.
Kilroy J. Oldster (Dead Toad Scrolls)
The only one of the early investigators who carried the exploration of hysteria to its logical conclusion was Breuer's patient Anna O. After Breuer abandoned her, she apparently remained ill for several years. And then she recovered. The mute hysteric who had invented the "talking cure" found her voice and her sanity, in the women's liberation movement. Under a pseudonym, Paul Berthold, she translated into German the classic treatise by Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Women, and authored a play, Women's Rights. Under her own name, Bertha Papenheim became a prominent feminist social worker, intellectual, and organizer. In the course of a long and fruitful career she directed an orphanage for girls, founded a feminist organization for Jewish women and traveled throughout Europe and the Middle East to campaign against the sexual exploitation of women and children. Her dedication, energy and commitment were legendary. In the words of a colleague, 'A volcano lived in this woman... Her fight against the abuse of women and children was almost a physically felt pain for her.' At her death, the philosopher Martin Buber commemorated her: 'I not only admired her but loved her, and will love her until the day I die. There are people of spirit and there are people of passion, both less common than one might think. Rarer still are the people of spirit and passion. But rarest of all is a passionate spirit. Bertha Pappenheim was a woman with just such a spirit.
Judith Lewis Herman (Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror)
The book ‘Outliers’ by Malcolm Gladwell talks about the 10,000-hour theory–that almost anyone can master a skill if they dedicate 10,000 hours to it. The same is true for your side hustle. If you put in the right hours–into the right places–then you can build a successful side hustle, too. The rate at which you put these hours in is up to you. Yes, if you go slower, then it will take longer. But compared to your other option–doing nothing at all–what’s the hurry? Here’s the tried and true technique I use to put the necessary time into any new project without overwhelming myself: Set aside 20 minutes–no more!–every single day to work on your project, and protect those 20 minutes with everything you have. Never let anything get in the way of this time.
Rebecca Scott (Hustling 101: Selling your Talents without Selling your Soul)
I opened the door and stepped in. Raw pain filled me at the sight of my painting. 'Show me what it looked like, before the fire.' His request surprised me, but I did as he asked. With eyes closed, I projected the exact details of the painting I had poured my soul into. Just as I had experienced his love of surfing in a visceral way, he shared not just the visual beauty of my work, but the love and passion with which I had dedicated myself to it. 'Thank you. Now, it will never truly be gone.' I choked back a sob and went to Mr. K's office.
Kimberly Kinrade (Forbidden Mind (Forbidden, #1))
They think they’re really sticking it to you, but they’re being—herded. Into the service of agendas they’d never support in a thousand years, if they only knew. And they’re dedicated, Daniel. They’re ferocious. They fight your wars with a passion you could never buy and never coerce, because they’re doing it out of pure ideology.
Peter Watts (Echopraxia (Firefall, #2))
Eckert, with his passion for detail and perfection, was the chief engineer. Eckert became so dedicated to the project that he would sometimes sleep next to the machine. Once, as a joke, two engineers picked up his cot and gently moved him to an identical room one floor up; when he awoke he briefly feared the machine had been stolen.
Walter Isaacson (The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution)
For the last year and a half this room had been my 'pensive citadel:' here I had read and studied through all the hours of the night: and, though true it was, that for the latter part of this time I, who was framed for love and gentle affections, had lost my gaiety and happiness, during the strife and fever of contention with my guardian; yet, on the other hand, as a boy, so passionately fond of books, and dedicated to intellectual pursuits, I could not fail to have enjoyed many happy hours in the midst of general dejection. I wept as I looked round on the chair, hearth, writing-table, and other familiar objects, knowing too certainly, that I looked upon them for the last time.
Thomas de Quincey (Confessions of an English Opium Eater)
Our defeats teach us much more than our victories ever would!” ― Avijeet Das _________________________________________ #chasedreams #nevergi To succeed we need committment, discipline, dedication, and determination. And if you can amalgamate all of the above qualities with your passion and energy then no one can stop you from achieving the uncommon!
Avijeet Das
You will work long days, early mornings & late nights . you will have many associates, but few or no friends. You will experience doubt, pain, confusion & failure. You will be single unless he or she understands your passion. You will be given props for your hard work. people will want you to do good, but never better than them. For that you will do many things alone.
Marie Blanchard
You can work long, hard, or smart, but at Amazon.com you can’t choose two out of three.” Bezos makes no apologies. “We are working to build something important, something that matters to our customers, something that we can all tell our grandchildren about,” he says. “Such things aren’t meant to be easy. We are incredibly fortunate to have this group of dedicated employees whose sacrifices and passion build Amazon.com
Jeff Bezos (Invent and Wander: The Collected Writings of Jeff Bezos)
Mr. President I confess that there are several parts of this constitution which I do not at present approve, but I am not sure I shall never approve them: For having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged by better information, or fuller consideration, to change opinions even on important subjects, which I once thought right, but found to be otherwise. It is therefore that the older I grow, the more apt I am to doubt my own judgment, and to pay more respect to the judgment of others. Most men indeed as well as most sects in Religion, think themselves in possession of all truth, and that wherever others differ from them it is so far error. Steele a Protestant in a Dedication tells the Pope, that the only difference between our Churches in their opinions of the certainty of their doctrines is, the Church of Rome is infallible and the Church of England is never in the wrong. But though many private persons think almost as highly of their own infallibility as of that of their sect. In these sentiments, Sir, I agree to this Constitution with all its faults, if they are such; because I think a general Government necessary for us, and there is no form of Government but what may be a blessing to the people if well administered, and believe farther that this is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in Despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic Government, being incapable of any other. I doubt too whether any other Convention we can obtain, may be able to make a better Constitution. For when you assemble a number of men to have the advantage of their joint wisdom, you inevitably assemble with those men, all their prejudices, their passions, their errors of opinion, their local interests, and their selfish views. From such an assembly can a perfect production be expected? It therefore astonishes me, Sir, to find this system approaching so near to perfection as it does; and I think it will astonish our enemies, who are waiting with confidence to hear that our councils are confounded like those of the Builders of Babel; and that our States are on the point of separation, only to meet hereafter for the purpose of cutting one another's throats. Thus I consent, Sir, to this Constitution because I expect no better, and because I am not sure, that it is not the best. The opinions I have had of its errors, I sacrifice to the public good. I have never whispered a syllable of them abroad. Within these walls they were born, and here they shall die. If every one of us in returning to our Constituents were to report the objections he has had to it, and endeavor to gain partizans in support of them, we might prevent its being generally received, and thereby lose all the salutary effects & great advantages resulting naturally in our favor among foreign Nations as well as among ourselves, from our real or apparent unanimity. Much of the strength & efficiency of any Government in procuring and securing happiness to the people, depends, on opinion, on the general opinion of the goodness of the Government, as well as of the wisdom and integrity of its Governors. I hope therefore that for our own sakes as a part of the people, and for the sake of posterity, we shall act heartily and unanimously in recommending this Constitution (if approved by Congress & confirmed by the Conventions) wherever our influence may extend, and turn our future thoughts & endeavors to the means of having it well administred. On the whole, Sir, I can not help expressing a wish that every member of the Convention who may still have objections to it, would with me, on this occasion doubt a little of his own infallibility, and to make manifest our unanimity, put his name to this instrument.
Benjamin Franklin
First: Discern your dharma. “Look to your own duty,” says Krishna in Chapter Two. “Do not tremble before it.” Discern, name, and then embrace your own dharma. Then: Do it full out! Knowing your dharma, do it with every fiber of your being. Bring everything you’ve got to it. Commit yourself utterly. In this way you can live an authentically passionate life, and you can transform desire itself into a bonfire of light. Next: Let go of the outcome. “Relinquish the fruits of your actions,” says Krishna. Success and failure in the eyes of the world are not your concern. “It is better to fail at your own dharma than to succeed at the dharma of someone else,” he says. Finally: Turn your actions over to God. “Dedicate your actions to me,” says Krishna. All true vocation arises in the stream of love that flows between the individual soul and the divine soul. All true dharma is a movement of the soul back to its Ground.
Stephen Cope (The Great Work of Your Life: A Guide for the Journey to Your True Calling)
Unnatural, frantic, anxious work, work done under pressure of greed or fear or any other inordinate passion, cannot properly speaking be dedicated to God, because God never wills such work directly. He may permit that through no fault of our own we may have to work madly and distractedly, due to our sins, and to the sins of the society in which we live. In that case we must tolerate it and make the best of what we cannot avoid. But let us not be blind to the distinction between sound, healthy work and unnatural toil. In
Thomas Merton (New Seeds of Contemplation)
Exploring all I could find, often with reckless dedication, I devoured the philosophies and theologies of animistic and shamanistic traditions. Hungrily I began learning: how to feel connection with the wind and the waves, how to hear the songs of the land and the stories of the ancestors, how to dissolve into darkness and ride the thermals of light. Slowly I discovered how these traditions are still alive, not just in lands that, with a mix of disquiet and envy, Western cultures call primitive and uncivilized. Returning to the islands of my ancestors, with wonder and relief, I found animistic religions in the rolling hills and flowering gardens of Britain. To my surprise and delight, I found too that here my passion for science was as nurtured as my soul’s artistic creativity. There was nothing in quantum physics or molecular biology, or the theories of the physiology of consciousness that could negate my growing understanding and experience of sanctity. I found the power of reason here, naturally inherent within the language of a religion.
Emma Restall Orr (Living With Honour: A Pagan Ethics)
Where did the idea that interracial relationships are incompatible with the fight for equality come from? My white husband doesn’t make me any less black, or any less dedicated to the fight for racial justice—just as being married to a man doesn’t make me any less of a feminist or passionate about women’s issues. Perhaps some forget that interracial marriage was at one time, not so long ago, a civil rights issue; it was illegal in many states until 1967, when the landmark Supreme Court case Loving v. Virginia determined that anti-miscegenation laws were unconstitutional
Franchesca Ramsey (Well, That Escalated Quickly: Memoirs and Mistakes of an Accidental Activist)
With every day that passes my reality becomes less valuable. It’s loud, disordered, unpredictable and arduous. Reality – what can it do? Make you hungry, thirsty, dissatisfied. It causes pain, strikes you down with disease, obeys laughable laws. But above all it is finite. It always leads to death. It is other things that count, that are powerful: ideas, passions, even madness. Everything that elevates itself above reason. I withdraw my consent from reality. I deny it my assistance. I dedicate myself to the temptations of escapism, and throw myself wholeheartedly into the endlessness of unreality.
Ursula Poznanski (Erebos)
As for the world beyond my family—well, what they would see for most of my teenage years was not a budding leader but rather a lackadaisical student, a passionate basketball player of limited talent, and an incessant, dedicated partyer. No student government for me; no Eagle Scouts or interning at the local congressman’s office. Through high school, my friends and I didn’t discuss much beyond sports, girls, music, and plans for getting loaded. Three of these guys—Bobby Titcomb, Greg Orme, and Mike Ramos—remain some of my closest friends. To this day, we can laugh for hours over stories of our misspent youth. In later years, they would throw themselves into my campaigns with a loyalty for which I will always be grateful, becoming as skilled at defending my record as anyone on MSNBC. But there were also times during my presidency—after they had watched me speak to a big crowd, say, or receive a series of crisp salutes from young Marines during a base tour—when their faces would betray a certain bafflement, as if they were trying to reconcile the graying man in a suit and tie with the ill-defined man-child they’d once known. That guy? they must have said to themselves. How the hell did that happen? And if my friends had ever asked me directly, I’m not sure I’d have had a good answer.
Barack Obama (A Promised Land)
I realized that I needed to code this thing in a new way, so to speak. Jokingly at first, and then more seriously, I said I needed a metric for measuring what I was achieving, so that I would be able to take stock at the end of my life. I chose one that seemed rather silly, but that I've actually taken to heart. I've developed a list of toxic chemicals that are generally agreed to be environmental health hazards of a very significant magnitude. I've decided that the world isn't big enough for them and me. So they have to go. I have dedicated myself to the removal of this series of chemicals from commerce. That way, I can mark my success not only in terms of this passion, but also in very clear behavioral terms.
Ken Geiser
You’ve probably had a similar experience with someone you know. I’ve already recounted the stories of three of my closest friends—one in high school, one in college, and one in seminary—who seemed so dedicated to serving the Lord, and yet all of them eventually turned their backs on Him. One became a dope-smoking rock-concert promoter, and another became a Buddhist. These were not casual acquaintances, but friends at a very close level. I was sure they shared my passion for the true gospel as much as they shared my love for sports. These three young men proved to me that you can profess Christ and not know Him. You can think you’re a Christian and later see clearly that you’re not; you can certainly deceive other people. Seeing these seemingly intelligent, dedicated, strong Christians abandon their beliefs forced me to think about who is really a Christian and what being a Christian really means. Their actions portrayed them as fellow soldiers of Christ, but in the end their hearts exposed them as traitors. Spiritual defectors are an integral part of the story of Christianity, both past and present. They’re in your life and mine, just as they were in Jesus’ life. They shouldn’t surprise you, defeat you, disappoint you, or cause you to despair. Jesus’ insights on spiritual defectors in John 6, and the reaction to His teaching about the issue, give us one of the most compelling and enlightening stories of His ministry. It’s worth considering closely.
John F. MacArthur Jr. (Hard to Believe: The High Cost and Infinite Value of Following Jesus)
A real garden is what I would call a parcel of land - any size, anywhere, with any plants or no plants - that is loved and nurtured. It's a personal place, probably enclosed in some way, and imbued with a person's spirit, a gardener's spirit. I'm sure many people think being a gardener sounds like a horrible job. I think it's one of the most rewarding occupations anyone could have – I mean to physically make gardens, not just sit down and design one (let's leave that to the designers), and not just take care of grass and plants (maintenance workers can do that). To dedicate your entire being and all the passion and time and knowledge you have to working with plants and shaping them into a living, personal artwork. That's what a real gardener does, and that's why “half-gardener” is already a compliment.
Clark A. Lawrence (Mezzo giardiniere)
The twentieth-century mystic Thomas Merton wrote, “There can be an intense egoism in following everybody else. People are in a hurry to magnify themselves by imitating what is popular—and too lazy to think of anything better. Hurry ruins saints as well as artists. They want quick success, and they are in such a haste to get it that they cannot take time to be true to themselves. And when the madness is upon them, they argue that their very haste is a species of integrity.”20 Merton elegantly articulates how the pressure of the create-on-demand world can cause us to look sideways at our peers and competitors instead of looking ahead. The process of discovering and refining your voice takes time. Unnecessary Creation grants you the space to discover your unique aptitudes and passions through a process of trial, error, and play that won’t often be afforded to you otherwise. Initiating a project with no parameters and no expectations from others also forces you to stay self-aware while learning to listen to and follow your intuition. Both of these are crucial skills for discovering your voice. It’s completely understandable if you’re thinking, “But wait—I hardly have time to breathe, and now you want me to cram something else into my schedule, just for my own enjoyment?” It’s true that every decision about where we spend our time has an opportunity cost, and dedicating time to Unnecessary Creation seems like a remarkably inefficient choice. In truth, it is inefficient. Consider, however, the opportunity cost of spending your life only on pragmatics. You dedicate your time to pleasing everyone else and delivering on their expectations, but you never get around to discovering your deeper aptitudes and creative capacities. Nothing is worth that.
Jocelyn K. Glei (Manage Your Day-To-Day: Build Your Routine, Find Your Focus, and Sharpen Your Creative Mind)
the artist who gives his all to life, to living within some sort of perfected ideal. Sometime in his past, he has discovered he is…let us say, a poet: that certain situations, certain convergences of situations—usually too complicated for him to understand wholly, as they propitiously juxtapose conscious will with unconscious passion—they something-between-cause-and-allow a poem. He dedicates himself to living, according to his concepts, the civilized life in which poetry exists because it is part of civilization. He risks as much as his cousin. He generally produces fewer works, with greater intervals between them, and constantly must contend with the possibility that he will never write again if his life should so dictate—a good deal of his civilized energies must go toward resigning himself to the insignificance of his art, into the suppression of that theatrical side of his personality of which ambition is only a small part. He
Samuel R. Delany (Dhalgren)
Whatever the future may bring, I beg and pray all Magyars worthy of that name, whether living in silence under foreign overlords or in exile far from their homes, to hold together, to forget party strife, and to keep before their eyes a single purpose: the restoration of Hungary’s freedom. Let us remember, lest their sacrifice was in vain, all those who gave their lives for their fatherland and those prisoners of war who have not yet returned home. The Hungarian people, and especially the Magyar peasants, are noble-minded. If the peasantry, the backbone of our nation, can succeed in retaining its well-tried, centuries-old national sense, its moral integrity, its martial courage and its joy in labour, even in times of terror and subjugation, if it refuses to heed those political agitators who preach class hatred and kindle the passions of the multitude, then, one day, Hungary will regain her freedom. To her defence and protection I dedicated my life.
Miklós Horthy (A Life for Hungary: Memoirs)
Dave does extra-mural work for the University, and collects about him many youths who have a part-time interest in truth. Dave’s pupils adore him, but there is a permanent fight on between him and them. They aspire like sunflowers. They are all natural metaphysicians, or so Dave says in a tone of disgust. This seems to me a wonderful thing to be, but it inspires in Dave a passion of opposition. To Dave’s pupils the world is a mystery; a mystery to which it should be reasonably possible to discover a key. The key would be something of the sort that could be contained in a book of some eight hundred pages. To find the key would not necessarily be a simple matter, but Dave’s pupils feel sure that the dedication of between four and ten hours a week, excluding University vacations, should suffice to find it. They do not conceive that the matter should be either more simple or more complex than that. They are prepared within certain limits to alter their views. Many of them arrive as theosophists and depart as Critical Realists or Bradeians. It is remarkable how Dave’s criticism seems os often to be purely catalytic in its action. He blazes upon them with the destructive fury of the sun, but instead of shrivelling up their metaphysical pretensions, achieves merely their metamorphosis from one rich stage into another. This curious fact makes me think that perhaps after all Dave is, in spite of himself, a good teacher. Occasionally he succeeds in converting some peculiarly receptive youth to his own brand of linguistics analysis; after which as often as not the youth loses interest in philosophy altogether. To watch Dave at work on these young men is like watching someone prune a rose bush. It is all the strongest and most luxuriant shoots which have to come off. Then later perhaps there will be blossoms; but not philosophical ones, Dave trusts. His great aim is to dissuade the young from philosophy. He always warns me off it with particular earnestness.
Iris Murdoch (Under the Net)
The failure of Communism was consecrated in the fall of the Soviet Union. The remarkable thing is that, as in most cases when prophecy fails, the faith never faltered. Indeed, an alternative version had long been maturing, though cast into the shadows for a time by enthusiasm for the quick fix of revolution. It had, however, been maturing for at least a century and already had a notable repertoire of institutions available. We may call it Olympianism, because it is the project of an intellectual elite that believes that it enjoys superior enlightenment and that its business is to spread this benefit to those living on the lower slopes of human achievement. And just as Communism had been a political project passing itself off as the ultimate in scientific understanding, so Olympianism burrowed like a parasite into the most powerful institution of the emerging knowledge economy--the universities. We may define Olympianism as a vision of human betterment to be achieved on a global scale by forging the peoples of the world into a single community based on the universal enjoyment of appropriate human rights. Olympianism is the cast of mind dedicated to this end, which is believed to correspond to the triumph of reason and community over superstition and hatred. It is a politico-moral package in which the modern distinction between morals and politics disappears into the aspiration for a shared mode of life in which the communal transcends individual life. To be a moral agent is in these terms to affirm a faith in a multicultural humanity whose social and economic conditions will be free from the causes of current misery. Olympianism is thus a complex long-term vision, and contemporary Western Olympians partake of different fragments of it. To be an Olympian is to be entangled in a complex dialectic involving elitism and egalitarianism. The foundational elitism of the Olympian lies in self-ascribed rationality, generally picked up on an academic campus. Egalitarianism involves a formal adherence to democracy as a rejection of all forms of traditional authority, but with no commitment to taking any serious notice of what the people actually think. Olympians instruct mortals, they do not obey them. Ideally, Olympianism spreads by rational persuasion, as prejudice gives way to enlightenment. Equally ideally, democracy is the only tolerable mode of social coordination, but until the majority of people have become enlightened, it must be constrained within a framework of rights, to which Olympian legislation is constantly adding. Without these constraints, progress would be in danger from reactionary populism appealing to prejudice. The overriding passion of the Olympian is thus to educate the ignorant and everything is treated in educational terms. Laws for example are enacted not only to shape the conduct of the people, but also to send messages to them. A belief in the power of role models, public relations campaigns, and above all fierce restrictions on raising sensitive questions devant le peuple are all part of pedagogic Olympianism.
Kenneth Minogue
Having judged, condemned, abandoned his cultural forms, his language, his food habits, his sexual behavior, his way of sitting down, of resting, of laughing, of enjoying himself, the oppressed flings himself upon the imposed culture with the desperation of a drowning man. Developing his technical knowledge in contact with more and more perfected machines, entering into the dynamic circuit of industrial production, meeting men from remote regions in the framework of the concentration of capital, that is to say, on the job, discovering the assembly line, the team, production �time,� in other words yield per hour, the oppressed is shocked to find that he continues to be the object of racism and contempt. It is at this level that racism is treated as a question of persons. �There are a few hopeless racists, but you must admit that on the whole the population likes….� �With time all this will disappear.� �This is the country where there is the least amount of race prejudice.� �At the United Nations there is a commission to fight race prejudice.� Films on race prejudice, poems on race prejudice, messages on race prejudice. Spectacular and futile condemnations of race prejudice. In reality, a colonial country is a racist country. If in England, in Belgium, or in France, despite the democratic principles affirmed by these respective nations, there are still racists, it is these racists who, in their opposition to the country as a whole, are logically consistent. It is not possible to enslave men without logically making them inferior through and through. And racism is only the emotional, affective, sometimes intellectual explanation of this inferiorization. The racist in a culture with racism is therefore normal. He has achieved a perfect harmony of economic relations and ideology. The idea that one forms of man, to be sure, is never totally dependent on economic relations, in other words—and this must not be forgotten—on relations existing historically and geographically among men and groups. An ever greater number of members belonging to racist societies are taking a position. They are dedicating themselves to a world in which racism would be impossible. But everyone is not up to this kind of objectivity, this abstraction, this solemn commitment. One cannot with impunity require of a man that he be against �the prejudices of his group.� And, we repeat, every colonialist group is racist. �Acculturized� and deculturized at one and the same time, the oppressed continues to come up against racism. He finds this sequel illogical, what be has left behind him inexplicable, without motive, incorrect. His knowledge, the appropriation of precise and complicated techniques, sometimes his intellectual superiority as compared to a great number of racists, lead him to qualify the racist world as passion-charged. He perceives that the racist atmosphere impregnates all the elements of the social life. The sense of an overwhelming injustice is correspondingly very strong. Forgetting racism as a consequence, one concentrates on racism as cause. Campaigns of deintoxication are launched. Appeal is made to the sense of humanity, to love, to respect for the supreme values.
Frantz Fanon (Toward the African Revolution)
The goal was ambitious. Public interest was high. Experts were eager to contribute. Money was readily available. Armed with every ingredient for success, Samuel Pierpont Langley set out in the early 1900s to be the first man to pilot an airplane. Highly regarded, he was a senior officer at the Smithsonian Institution, a mathematics professor who had also worked at Harvard. His friends included some of the most powerful men in government and business, including Andrew Carnegie and Alexander Graham Bell. Langley was given a $50,000 grant from the War Department to fund his project, a tremendous amount of money for the time. He pulled together the best minds of the day, a veritable dream team of talent and know-how. Langley and his team used the finest materials, and the press followed him everywhere. People all over the country were riveted to the story, waiting to read that he had achieved his goal. With the team he had gathered and ample resources, his success was guaranteed. Or was it? A few hundred miles away, Wilbur and Orville Wright were working on their own flying machine. Their passion to fly was so intense that it inspired the enthusiasm and commitment of a dedicated group in their hometown of Dayton, Ohio. There was no funding for their venture. No government grants. No high-level connections. Not a single person on the team had an advanced degree or even a college education, not even Wilbur or Orville. But the team banded together in a humble bicycle shop and made their vision real. On December 17, 1903, a small group witnessed a man take flight for the first time in history. How did the Wright brothers succeed where a better-equipped, better-funded and better-educated team could not? It wasn’t luck. Both the Wright brothers and Langley were highly motivated. Both had a strong work ethic. Both had keen scientific minds. They were pursuing exactly the same goal, but only the Wright brothers were able to inspire those around them and truly lead their team to develop a technology that would change the world. Only the Wright brothers started with Why. 2.
Simon Sinek (Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
From the Author Matthew 16:25 says, “For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”  This is a perfect picture of the life of Nate Saint; he gave up his life so God could reveal a greater glory in him and through him. I first heard the story of Operation Auca when I was eight years old, and ever since then I have been inspired by Nate’s commitment to the cause of Christ. He was determined to carry out God’s will for his life in spite of fears, failures, and physical challenges. For several years of my life, I lived and ministered with my parents who were missionaries on the island of Jamaica. My experiences during those years gave me a passion for sharing the stories of those who make great sacrifices to carry the gospel around the world. As I wrote this book, learning more about Nate Saint’s life—seeing his spirit and his struggles—was both enlightening and encouraging to me. It is my prayer that this book will provide a window into Nate Saint’s vision—his desires, dreams, and dedication. I pray his example will convince young people to step out of their comfort zones and wholeheartedly seek God’s will for their lives. That is Nate Saint’s legacy: changing the world for Christ, one person and one day at a time.   Nate Saint Timeline 1923 Nate Saint born. 1924 Stalin rises to power in Russia. 1930 Nate’s first flight, aged 7 with his brother, Sam. 1933 Nate’s second flight with his brother, Sam. 1936 Nate made his public profession of faith. 1937 Nate develops bone infection. 1939 World War II begins. 1940 Winston Churchill becomes British Prime Minister. 1941 Nate graduates from Wheaton College. Nate takes first flying lesson. Japan attacks Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. 1942 Nate’s induction into the Army Air Corps. 1943 Nate learns he is to be transferred to Indiana. 1945 Atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan by U.S. 1946 Nate discharged from the Army. 1947 Nate accepted for Wheaton College. 1948 Nate and Marj are married and begin work in Eduador. Nate crashes his plane in Quito. 1949 Nate’s first child, Kathy, is born. Germany divided into East and West. 1950 Korean War begins. 1951 Nate’s second child, Stephen, is born. 1952 The Saint family return home to the U.S. 1953 Nate comes down with pneumonia. Nate and Henry fly to Ecuador. 1954 The first nuclear-powered submarine is launched. Nate’s third child, Phillip, is born. 1955 Nate is joined by Jim Elliot, Ed McCully, Peter Fleming and Roger Youderian. Nate spots an Auca village for the first time. Operation Auca commences. 1956 The group sets up camp four miles from the Auca territory. Nate and the group are killed on “Palm Beach”.
Nancy Drummond (Nate Saint: Operation Auca (Torchbearers))
It serves the American socialists as a leading argument in their endeavor to depict American capitalism as a curse of mankind. Reluctantly forced to admit that capitalism pours a horn of plenty upon people and that the Marxian prediction of the masses' progressive impoverishment has been spectacularly disproved by the facts, they try to salvage their detraction of capitalism by describing contemporary civilization as merely materialistic and sham. Bitter attacks upon modem civilization are launched by writers who think that they are pleading the cause of religion. They reprimand our age for its secularism. They bemoan the passing of a way of life in which, they would have us believe, people were not preoccupied with the pursuit of earthly ambitions but were first of ali concerned about the strict observance of their religious duties. They ascribe ali evils to the spread of skepticism and agnosticism and passionately advocate a return to the orthodoxy of ages gone by. It is hard to find a doctrine which distorts history more radically than this antisecularism. There have always been devout men, pure in heart and dedicated to a pious life. But the religiousness of these sincere believers had nothing in common with the established system of devotion. It is a myth that the political and social institutions of the ages preceding modem individualistic philosophy and modem capitalism were imbued with a genuine Christian spirit. The teachings of the Gospels did not determine the official attitude of the governments toward religion. It was, on the contrary, thisworldly concems of the secular rulers—absolute kings and aristocratic oligarchies, but occasionally also revolting peasants and urban mobs—that transformed religion into an instrument of profane political ambitions. Nothing could be less compatible with true religion than the ruthless persecution of dissenters and the horrors of religious crusades and wars. No historian ever denied that very little of the spirit of Christ was to be found in the churches of the sixteenth century which were criticized by the theologians of the Reformation and in those of the eighteenth century which the philosophers of the Enlightenment attacked. The ideology of individualism and utilitarianism which inaugurated modern capitalism brought freedom also to the religious longings of man. It shattered the pretension of those in power to impose their own creed upon their subjects. Religion is no longer the observance of articles enforced by constables and executioners. It is what a man, guided by his conscience, spontaneously espouses as his own faith. Modern Western civilization is thisworldly. But it was precisely its secularism, its religious indifference, that gave rein to the renascence of genuine religious feeling. Those who worship today in a free country are not driven by the secular arm but by their conscience. In complying with the precepts of their persuasion, they are not intent upon avoiding punishment on the part of the earthly authorities but upon salvation and peace of mind.
Ludwig von Mises (Theory and History: An Interpretation of Social and Economic Evolution)
EXERCISE 10: DEVELOPING A GRAND VISION You may want to do this exercise alone, out in a natural setting somewhere. 1. See Your Interests, Values, and Abilities. The next step is to discover how your interests and your deep values connect into and form your mission. It can be accomplished by seeing a grand, whole, meaningful image of what purpose you could dedicate your life to. This will be formed from your interests, values, and present goals. Begin to play with the images that you see, which represent some kind of direction that you want to take. As you get a sense of what your mission can be, see various snapshots of yourself doing what you love to do, snapshots of your abilities. 2. Focus on Heroes and Heroines. Take a look at what your favorite heroes or heroines do. See yourself doing things that give you the same feeling you get when you think of them. See snapshots of the person you want to become. Any images you don’t like can fade away. 3. Direct a Movie of Yourself. See yourself the way you want to be—doing the things you love to do. Whatever you choose to put on the screen, you’re the Spielberg, you’re the director. See the images that you feel passionate about. You can play with the images in front of you. Pretend that you’re in the middle of an inner, three-dimensional movie theater. It’s a place where you can see and hear and feel with great fidelity. Notice how much you can see, letting the wisdom from within guide the visual display that you see in front of you. Visualize it, feel it, enjoy it. The images are often up close and in full, rich color. See yourself living out a scenario that gives you tingles in your spine. You can zoom in on that glorious, fun-filled, exciting future that you see. It allows you to do what you love to do and accomplish what you believe in. 4. Recall Your Deep Values. List your deep values as you watch your mission scenario. Notice how your values and your images can fit together with a remarkable consistency. 5. Ask for Help from Your Inner Wisdom. Ask for your inner wisdom, the higher powers, or God to guide your grand vision. This vision is going to be more of a discovery than a creation. Let it come to you. Ask and it will come. Take the time to see and hear those aspects of life that unify into a whole that you feel a powerful passion for. See some more images. See some time going by. See various bright, radiant, up-close, colorful images of what it is that you could create in your life. They can begin going in a certain direction, coalescing and representing many of your current goals, some of the things that you want. See them develop into a kind of grand visionary collection of images that represents your purpose and your mission. 6. Do What It Takes. Take whatever time you need—five minutes, an hour, a whole afternoon. This is your life, your future that you are creating. When you finish, write it down. Your images are so attractive, you have some glimpses of what your mission is. Now you can develop it more fully. Ask the visionary in you to give you the gift of this grand vision. Now that you can see your grand vision of what you want to contribute to, you can make that vision into a cause to work for—a specific direction to channel your efforts to.
NLP Comprehensive (NLP: The New Technology of Achievement)