β
It isn't what you have or who you are or where you are or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It is what you think about it.
β
β
Dale Carnegie (How to Win Friends & Influence People)
β
It is not the size of the dog in the fight that counts, but the fight in the dog that wins.
β
β
Arthur G. Lewis (Stub Ends of Thought and Verse (Classic Reprint))
β
Don't be afraid of enemies who attack you. Be afraid of the friends who flatter you.
β
β
Dale Carnegie (How to Win Friends & Influence People)
β
To love and win is the best thing.
To love and lose, the next best.
β
β
William Makepeace Thackeray
β
Swords can win territories but not hearts, forces can bend heads but not minds.
β
β
Mirza Tahir Ahmad
β
I ask not for any crown
But that which all may win;
Nor try to conquer any world
Except the one within.
β
β
Louisa May Alcott
β
Whatever you do, you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising that tempt you to believe your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires some of the same courage that a soldier needs. Peace has its victories, but it takes brave men and women to win them.
β
β
Ralph Waldo Emerson
β
Oh the places you'll go! There is fun to be done! There are points to be scored. There are games to be won. And the magical things you can do with that ball will make you the winning-est winner of all.
β
β
Dr. Seuss (Oh, The Places Youβll Go!)
β
You're never as good as everyone tells you when you win, and you're never as bad as they say when you lose.
β
β
Lou Holtz
β
Even if things don't unfold the way you expected, don't be disheartened or give up. One who continues to advance will win in the end.
β
β
Daisaku Ikeda
β
Youβre not obligated to win. Youβre obligated to keep trying. To the best you can do everyday.
β
β
Jason Mraz
β
A fight is going on inside me," said an old man to his son. "It is a terrible fight between two wolves. One wolf is evil. He is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego. The other wolf is good. he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you."
The son thought about it for a minute and then asked, "Which wolf will win?"
The old man replied simply, "The one you feed.
β
β
Wendy Mass (Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life)
β
I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.
β
β
Michael Jordan
β
Yesterday is not ours to recover, but tomorrow is ours to win or lose.
β
β
Lyndon B. Johnson
β
Next to trying and winning, the best thing is trying and failing.
β
β
L.M. Montgomery (Anne of Green Gables (Anne of Green Gables, #1))
β
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.
β
β
Germany Kent
β
You can't outwit fate by standing on the sidelines placing little sidebets about the outcome of life. either you wade in and risk everything you have to play the game or you don't play at all. and if u don't play u can't win.
β
β
Judith McNaught (Paradise (Paradise, #1))
β
Our job in this life is not to shape ourselves into some ideal we imagine we ought to be, but to find out who we already are and become it.
β
β
Steven Pressfield (The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles)
β
Choose your battles wisely. After all, life isn't measured by how many times you stood up to fight. It's not winning battles that makes you happy, but it's how many times you turned away and chose to look into a better direction. Life is too short to spend it on warring. Fight only the most, most, most important ones, let the rest go.
β
β
C. JoyBell C.
β
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the will which says to them: 'Hold on!'
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!
β
β
Rudyard Kipling (If: A Father's Advice to His Son)
β
Fame you'll be famous, as famous as can be, with everyone watching you win on TV, Except when they don't because sometimes they won't..
β
β
Dr. Seuss (Oh, the Places Youβll Go!)
β
To be heroic is to be courageous enough to die for something; to be inspirational is to be crazy enough to live a little.
β
β
Criss Jami (Venus in Arms)
β
A quitter never wins-and-a winner never quits.
β
β
Napoleon Hill (Think and Grow Rich)
β
If you walked away from a
toxic, negative, abusive,
one-sided, dead-end
low vibrational
relationship or friendship
β you won.
β
β
Lalah Delia
β
Don't let them win. Don't let them beat you. Don't let them steal your magic.
β
β
Brom (The Child Thief)
β
Fear can only grow in darkness. Once you face fear with light, you win.
β
β
Steve Maraboli (Life, the Truth, and Being Free)
β
I've done my best, and I begin to understand what is meant by 'the joy of strife'. Next to trying and winning, the best thing is trying and failing.
β
β
L.M. Montgomery (Anne of Green Gables (Anne of Green Gables, #1))
β
Any fool can fight a winning battle, but it needs character to fight a losing one, and that should inspire us; which reminds me that I dreamed the other night that I was being hanged, but was the life and soul of the party.
β
β
W.B. Yeats
β
This is not the end, this is not even the beginning of the end, this is just perhaps the end of the beginning.
β
β
Winston S. Churchill
β
Never do a single thing in the anticipation to prove something to someone who has hurt you. If someone has hurt or offended you (whoever that person may be), never perform anything or strive for anything in your life with the mind of proving something to that someone/ to those people. May nothing that you do be done with any thought of them in mind. There is nothing that needs to be proven.
β
β
C. JoyBell C.
β
If I should have a daughterβ¦βInstead of βMomβ, sheβs gonna call me βPoint B.β Because that way, she knows that no matter what happens, at least she can always find her way to me. And Iβm going to paint the solar system on the back of her hands so that she has to learn the entire universe before she can say βOh, I know that like the back of my hand.β
Sheβs gonna learn that this life will hit you, hard, in the face, wait for you to get back up so it can kick you in the stomach. But getting the wind knocked out of you is the only way to remind your lungs how much they like the taste of air. There is hurt, here, that cannot be fixed by band-aids or poetry, so the first time she realizes that Wonder-woman isnβt coming, Iβll make sure she knows she doesnβt have to wear the cape all by herself. Because no matter how wide you stretch your fingers, your hands will always be too small to catch all the pain you want to heal. Believe me, Iβve tried.
And βBaby,β Iβll tell her βdonβt keep your nose up in the air like that, I know that trick, youβre just smelling for smoke so you can follow the trail back to a burning house so you can find the boy who lost everything in the fire to see if you can save him. Or else, find the boy who lit the fire in the first place to see if you can change him.β
But I know that she will anyway, so instead Iβll always keep an extra supply of chocolate and rain boats nearby, βcause there is no heartbreak that chocolate canβt fix. Okay, thereβs a few heartbreaks chocolate canβt fix. But thatβs what the rain boots are for, because rain will wash away everything if you let it.
I want her to see the world through the underside of a glass bottom boat, to look through a magnifying glass at the galaxies that exist on the pin point of a human mind. Because thatβs how my mom taught me. That thereβll be days like this, βThereβll be days like this my momma saidβ when you open your hands to catch and wind up with only blisters and bruises. When you step out of the phone booth and try to fly and the very people you wanna save are the ones standing on your cape. When your boots will fill with rain and youβll be up to your knees in disappointment and those are the very days you have all the more reason to say βthank you,β βcause there is nothing more beautiful than the way the ocean refuses to stop kissing the shoreline no matter how many times itβs sent away.
You will put the βwindβ in win some lose some, you will put the βstarβ in starting over and over, and no matter how many land mines erupt in a minute be sure your mind lands on the beauty of this funny place called life.
And yes, on a scale from one to over-trusting I am pretty damn naive but I want her to know that this world is made out of sugar. It can crumble so easily but donβt be afraid to stick your tongue out and taste it.
βBaby,β Iβll tell her βremember your mama is a worrier but your papa is a warrior and you are the girl with small hands and big eyes who never stops asking for more.β
Remember that good things come in threes and so do bad things and always apologize when youβve done something wrong but donβt you ever apologize for the way your eyes refuse to stop shining.
Your voice is small but donβt ever stop singing and when they finally hand you heartbreak, slip hatred and war under your doorstep and hand you hand-outs on street corners of cynicism and defeat, you tell them that they really ought to meet your mother.
β
β
Sarah Kay
β
The pleasure of rooting for Goliath is that you can expect to win. The pleasure of rooting for David is that, while you donβt know what to expect, you stand at least a chance of being inspired.
β
β
Michael Lewis (Moneyball)
β
If I believe I will win, then victory will believe in me.
β
β
Paulo Coelho (Aleph)
β
Leaders live by choice, not by accident.
β
β
Mark Gorman
β
Winners dont do different things,they do things differently
β
β
Shiv Khera (You Can Win : A Step by Step Tool for Top Achievers)
β
You don't win races by wishing, you win them by running faster than everyone else does.
β
β
Philip Pullman (Clockwork (Cover to Cover))
β
A battle is won by him who is firmly resolved to win it.
β
β
Leo Tolstoy (War and Peace)
β
Under Adverse conditions - some people break down,some break records
β
β
Shiv Khera (You Can Win : A Step by Step Tool for Top Achievers)
β
How to win in life:
1 work hard
2 complain less
3 listen more
4 try, learn, grow
5 don't let people tell you it cant be done
6 make no excuses
β
β
Germany Kent
β
There is absolutely no greater high than challenging the power structure as a nobody, giving it your all, and winning!
β
β
Abbie Hoffman
β
You can surrender without a prayer, but never really pray without surrender. You can fight without ever winning, but never ever win without a fight.
β
β
Neil Peart
β
I never lose, I either win or learn
β
β
Nelson Mandela
β
Youβve got to be sure of yourself before
You can ever win a prize.
β
β
Napoleon Hill (Think and Grow Rich)
β
Live your life in such a way that you'll be remembered for your kindness, compassion, fairness, character, benevolence, and a force for good who had much respect for life, in general.
β
β
Germany Kent
β
If you think you are beaten, you are
If you think you dare not, you don't,
If you like to win, but you think you can't
It is almost certain you won't.
If you think you'll lose, you're lost
For out of the world we find,
Success begins with a fellow's will
It's all in the state of mind.
If you think you are outclassed, you are
You've got to think high to rise,
You've got to be sure of yourself before
You can ever win a prize.
Life's battles don't always go
To the stronger or faster man,
But soon or late the man who wins
Is the man WHO THINKS HE CAN!
β
β
Walter D. Wintle
β
The greatest win is walking away and choosing not to engage in drama and toxic energy at all.
β
β
Lalah Delia
β
I gave myself permission to care, because there are a lot of people in this world who are afraid of caring, who are afraid of showing they care because itβs uncool. Itβs uncool to have passion. Itβs so much easier to lose when youβve shown everyone how much you donβt care if you win or lose. Itβs much harder to lose when you show that you care, but youβll never win unless you also stand to lose. Iβve said it before. Donβt be afraid of your passion, give it free reign, and be honest and work hard and it will all turn out just fine.
β
β
Tom Hiddleston
β
What men and women need is encouragement. Their natural resisting powers should be strengthened, not weakened ... Instead of always harping on a man's faults, tell him of his virtues. Try to pull him out of his rut ... Hold up to him his better self, his real self that can dare and do and win out! ... People radiate what is in their minds and in their hearts.
β
β
Eleanor H. Porter (Pollyanna (Pollyanna, #1))
β
It is possible for the human spirit to win after all.
β
β
Jack Kerouac
β
Sure I am this day we are masters of our fate, that the task which has been set before us is not above our strength; that its pangs and toils are not beyond our endurance. As long as we have faith in our own cause and an unconquerable will to win, victory will not be denied us.
β
β
Winston S. Churchill
β
This pool is a triumph of imagination. That's how you win at life, Gin. You have to imagine your way through. Never say something can't be done. There's always a solution, even if it's weird.
β
β
Maureen Johnson (The Last Little Blue Envelope (Little Blue Envelope, #2))
β
Success in life is not for those who run fast, but for those who keep running and always on the move.
β
β
Bangambiki Habyarimana (Pearls Of Eternity)
β
To labor in the arts for any reason other than love is prostitution.
β
β
Steven Pressfield (The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles)
β
Your strength doesn't come from winning. It comes from struggles and hardship. Everything that you go through prepares you for the next level.
β
β
Germany Kent
β
. . . if you can't see the good man he is, you need to unscrew them eyeballs of yours and try on a different pair.
β
β
Karen Witemeyer (To Win Her Heart)
β
Whatβs the point of playing if winning isnβt the goal?
β
β
J.D. Robb (Fantasy in Death (In Death, #30))
β
Don't live the same day over and over again and call that a life. Life is about evolving mentally, spiritually, and emotionally.
β
β
Germany Kent
β
Very often in everyday life one sees that by losing one's temper with someone who has already lost his, one does not gain anything but only sets out upon the path of stupidity. He who has enough self-control to stand firm at the moment when the other person is in a temper, wins in the end. It is not he who has spoken a hundred words aloud who has won; it is he who has perhaps spoken only one word.
β
β
Hazrat Inayat Khan (Mastery Through Accomplishment)
β
Always have a 'Plan C
β
β
Zoltan Andrejkovics (The Invisible Game: The Mindset of a Winning Team)
β
Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain't all sunshine and rainbows. It's a very mean and nasty place, and I don't care how tough you are, it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain't about how hard you hit. It's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward; how much you can take and keep moving forward. That's how winning is done! Now, if you know what you're worth, then go out and get what you're worth. But you gotta be willing to take the hits, and not pointing fingers saying you ain't where you wanna be because of him, or her, or anybody. Cowards do that and that ain't you. You're better than that! I'm always gonna love you, no matter what. No matter what happens. You're my son and you're my blood. You're the best thing in my life. But until you start believing in yourself, you ain't gonna have a life.
β
β
Sylvester Stallone (Rocky Balboa)
β
Every game is winnable if you change your mind about what the prize should be and your perspective about the players at the table.
β
β
Shannon L. Alder
β
Why is it the songs all end with the good people winning, but in life they don't?"
They don't make songs when the good lose," I muttered. "They make war chants against the bad. So there won't be any songs for us.
β
β
Sherwood Smith (Crown Duel (Crown & Court, #1-2))
β
Winner dont do different but they do differently
β
β
Shiv Khera (You Can Win : A Step by Step Tool for Top Achievers)
β
Shout out to everyone transcending
a mindset, mentality, desire, belief,
emotion, habit, behavior or vibration,
that no longer serves them.
β
β
Lalah Delia
β
Advice to my younger self:
1 Start where you are with what you have
2 Try not to hurt other people
3 Take more chances
4 If you fail, keep trying
β
β
Germany Kent
β
I spent all night
weaving a poem for you
to wear. You look so beautiful
when you wear my light.
β
β
Kamand Kojouri
β
It's not over until you win
β
β
Les Brown (Its Not Over Until You Win: How to Become the Person You Always Wanted to Be No Matter What the Obstacle)
β
Play to win, not "not to lose".
β
β
Dondi Scumaci
β
It doesn't always take an army to save the world. Sometimes it takes just one person who won't let evil win.
β
β
Mary E. Pearson (Vow of Thieves (Dance of Thieves, #2))
β
Humility is not an attribute but a key to development.
β
β
Zoltan Andrejkovics (The Invisible Game: The Mindset of a Winning Team)
β
Small wins are a steady application of a small advantage.
β
β
Charles Duhigg (The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business)
β
You and I were created by God to be so much more than normalβ¦Following the crowd is not a winning approach to life. In the end itβs a loserβs game, because we never become who God created us to be by trying to be like everybody else.
β
β
Tim Tebow (Through My Eyes)
β
Marriage isn't about Winning - It's about Lasting
β
β
Mark Gorman
β
But I also realize that winning doesn't always mean getting first place; it means getting the best out of yourself.
β
β
Meb Keflezighi (Run to Overcome: The Inspiring Story of an American Champion's Long-Distance Quest to Achieve a Big Dream)
β
It is deeply satisfying to win a prize in front of a lot of people.
β
β
E.B. White (Charlotteβs Web)
β
They want us to be afraid.
They want us to be afraid of leaving our homes.
They want us to barricade our doors
and hide our children.
Their aim is to make us fear life itself!
They want us to hate.
They want us to hate 'the other'.
They want us to practice aggression
and perfect antagonism.
Their aim is to divide us all!
They want us to be inhuman.
They want us to throw out our kindness.
They want us to bury our love
and burn our hope.
Their aim is to take all our light!
They think their bricked walls
will separate us.
They think their damned bombs
will defeat us.
They are so ignorant they donβt understand
that my soul and your soul are old friends.
They are so ignorant they donβt understand
that when they cut you I bleed.
They are so ignorant they donβt understand
that we will never be afraid,
we will never hate
and we will never be silent
for life is ours!
β
β
Kamand Kojouri
β
If you want to conquer fear, don't sit at home and think about it. Go out and get busy.
β
β
Dale Carnegie (The Leader in You: How to Win Friends, Influence People and Succeed in a Changing World)
β
REMEMBER YOUR GREATNESS
Before you were born,
And were still too tiny for
The human eye to see,
You won the race for life
From among 250 million competitors.
And yet,
How fast you have forgotten
Your strength,
When your very existence
Is proof of your greatness.
You were born a winner,
A warrior,
One who defied the odds
By surviving the most gruesome
Battle of them all.
And now that you are a giant,
Why do you even doubt victory
Against smaller numbers,
And wider margins?
The only walls that exist,
Are those you have placed in your mind.
And whatever obstacles you conceive,
Exist only because you have forgotten
What you have already
Achieved.
Poetry by Suzy Kassem
β
β
Suzy Kassem (Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem)
β
I learned to love the fool in me. The one who feels too much, talks too much, takes too many chances, wins sometimes & loses often, lacks self-control, loves & hates, hurts & gets hurt, promises & breaks promises, laughs & cries.
β
β
Theodore Isaac Rubin
β
The wish of death had been palpably hanging over this otherwise idyllic paradise for a good many years.
All business and politics is personal in the Philippines.
If it wasn't for the cheap beer and lovely girls one of us would spend an hour in this dump.
They [Jehovah's Witnesses] get some kind of frequent flyer points for each person who signs on.
I'm not lazy. I'm just motivationally challenged.
I'm not fat. I just have lots of stored energy.
You don't get it do you? What people think of you matters more than the reality. Marilyn.
Despite standing firm at the final hurdle Marilyn was always ready to run the race.
After answering the question the woman bent down behind the stand out of sight of all, and crossed herself.
It is amazing what you can learn in prison. Merely through casual conversation Rick had acquired the fundamentals of embezzlement, fraud and armed hold up.
He wondered at the price of honesty in a grey world whose half tones changed faster than the weather.
The banality of truth somehow always surprises the news media before they tart it up.
You've ridden jeepneys in peak hour. Where else can you feel up a fourteen-year-old schoolgirl without even trying? [Ralph Winton on the Philippines finer points]
Life has no bottom. No matter how bad things are or how far one has sunk things can always get worse.
You could call the Oval Office an information rain shadow.
In the Philippines, a whole layer of criminals exists who consider that it is their right to rob you unhindered. If you thwart their wicked desires, to their way of thinking you have stolen from them and are evil.
There's honest and dishonest corruption in this country.
Don't enjoy it too much for it's what we love that usually kills us.
The good guys don't always win wars but the winners always make sure that they go down in history as the good guys.
The Philippines is like a woman. You love her and hate her at the same time.
I never believed in all my born days that ideas of truth and justice were only pretty words to brighten a much darker and more ubiquitous reality.
The girl was experiencing the first flushes of love while Rick was at least feeling the methadone equivalent.
Although selfishness and greed are more ephemeral than the real values of life their effects on the world often outlive their origins.
Miriam's a meteor job. Somewhere out there in space there must be a meteor with her name on it.
Tsismis or rumours grow in this land like tropical weeds.
Surprises are so common here that nothing is surprising.
A crooked leader who can lead is better than a crooked one who can't.
Although I always followed the politics of Hitler I emulate the drinking habits of Churchill.
It [Australia] is the country that does the least with the most.
Rereading the brief lines that told the story in the manner of Fox News reporting the death of a leftist Rick's dark imagination took hold.
Didn't your mother ever tell you never to trust a man who doesn't drink?
She must have been around twenty years old, was tall for a Filipina and possessed long black hair framing her smooth olive face. This specter of loveliness walked with the assurance of the knowingly beautiful. Her crisp and starched white uniform dazzled in the late-afternoon light and highlighted the natural tan of her skin. Everything about her was in perfect order. In short, she was dressed up like a pox doctorβs clerk. Suddenly, she stopped, turned her head to one side and spat comprehensively into the street. The tiny putrescent puddle contrasted strongly with the studied aplomb of its all-too-recent owner, suggesting all manner of disease and decay.
β
β
John Richard Spencer
β
You were born a winner, a warrior, one who defied the odds by surviving the most gruesome battle of them all - the race to the egg. And now that you are a giant, why do you even doubt victory against smaller numbers and wider margins? The only walls that exist are those you have placed in your mind. And whatever obstacles you conceive, exist only because you have forgotten what you have already achieved.
β
β
Suzy Kassem (Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem)
β
I looked at the campers, all of them grim and determined. I tried not to feel like this was the last time I'd ever see them all together. 'You're the greatest heroes of this millennium,' I told them. 'It doesn't matter how many monsters come at you. Fight bravely, and we will win.' I raised Riptide and shouted, 'FOR OLYMPUS!' They shouted in response, and our forty voices echoed off the buildings of Midtown.
β
β
Rick Riordan (The Last Olympian (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, #5))
β
Kropp on the other hand is a thinker. He proposes that a declaration of war should be a kind of popular festival with entrance-tickets and bands, like a bull fight. Then in the arena the ministers and generals of the two countries, dressed in bathing-drawers and armed with clubs, can have it out on themselves. Whoever survives the country wins. That would be much simpler and more than just this arrangement, where the wrong people do the fighting
β
β
Erich Maria Remarque (All Quiet on the Western Front)
β
Our world is not safe. It is a toxic swamp populated by predators and parasites. The odds are stacked against us from the moment of conception. We survive only because we fight the elements, hunger, disease, each other. And, although civilization promises us safe harbor, that promise is a fairy tale. Only the storm is real. It comes for each of us. And we cannot win. We can only choose how we will suffer our defeat.
We can meekly take our beatings, and die like lemmings, finding solace in the belief that we shall one day inherit the earth.
Or, we can plunge into the chaos with eyes wide open, taking comfort instead from the bruises, scars, and broken bones which prove that we fought to live and die as gods.
β
β
J.K. Franko (Life for Life (Talion #3))
β
Youβre lonely,β they say,
but it doesnβt scare me
anymore
for it teaches me,
and maybe thatβs the biggest win from these years:
I donβt need anyone else to distract me from myself anymore,
like I always thought I would.
I donβt break mirrors anymore,
like I always thought I would.
I can finally stand myself,
and I never thought I would.
β
β
Charlotte Eriksson (You're Doing Just Fine)
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I like Texas and Texans. In Texas, everything is bigger. When Texans win, they win big. And when they lose, it's spectacular.
If you really want to learn the attitude of how to handle risk, losing and failure, go to San Antonio and visit the Alamo. The Alamo is a great story of brave people who chose to fight, knowing there was no hope of success against overwhelming odds. They chose to die instead of surrendering. It's an inspiring story worthy of study; nonetheless, it's still a tragic military defeat. They got their butts kicked. A failure if you will. They lost. So how do Texans handle failure? They still shout, "Remember the Alamo!"
That's why I like Texans so much. They took a great failure and turned it into a tourist destination that makes them millions.
Texans don't bury their failures. They get inspired by them. They take their failures and turn them into rallying cries. Failure inspires Texans to become winners. But that formula is not just the formula for Texans. It is formula for all winners.
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Robert T. Kiyosaki (Rich Dad Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money - That the Poor and the Middle Class Do Not!)
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Closing The Cycle
One always has to know when a stage comes to an end. If we insist on staying longer than the necessary time, we lose the happiness and the meaning of the other stages we have to go through. Closing cycles, shutting doors, ending chapters - whatever name we give it, what matters is to leave in the past the moments of life that have finished.
Did you lose your job? Has a loving relationship come to an end? Did you leave your parents' house? Gone to live abroad? Has a long-lasting friendship ended all of a sudden?
You can spend a long time wondering why this has happened. You can tell yourself you won't take another step until you find out why certain things that were so important and so solid in your life have turned into dust, just like that. But such an attitude will be awfully stressing for everyone involved: your parents, your husband or wife, your friends, your children, your sister, everyone will be finishing chapters, turning over new leaves, getting on with life, and they will all feel bad seeing you at a standstill.
None of us can be in the present and the past at the same time, not even when we try to understand the things that happen to us. What has passed will not return: we cannot for ever be children, late adolescents, sons that feel guilt or rancor towards our parents, lovers who day and night relive an affair with someone who has gone away and has not the least intention of coming back.
Things pass, and the best we can do is to let them really go away. That is why it is so important (however painful it may be!) to destroy souvenirs, move, give lots of things away to orphanages, sell or donate the books you have at home. Everything in this visible world is a manifestation of the invisible world, of what is going on in our hearts - and getting rid of certain memories also means making some room for other memories to take their place.
Let things go. Release them. Detach yourself from them. Nobody plays this life with marked cards, so sometimes we win and sometimes we lose. Do not expect anything in return, do not expect your efforts to be appreciated, your genius to be discovered, your love to be understood. Stop turning on your emotional television to watch the same program over and over again, the one that shows how much you suffered from a certain loss: that is only poisoning you, nothing else.
Nothing is more dangerous than not accepting love relationships that are broken off, work that is promised but there is no starting date, decisions that are always put off waiting for the "ideal moment." Before a new chapter is begun, the old one has to be finished: tell yourself that what has passed will never come back. Remember that there was a time when you could live without that thing or that person - nothing is irreplaceable, a habit is not a need. This may sound so obvious, it may even be difficult, but it is very important.
Closing cycles. Not because of pride, incapacity or arrogance, but simply because that no longer fits your life. Shut the door, change the record, clean the house, shake off the dust. Stop being who you were, and change into who you are.
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Paulo Coelho
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Look. Shit happened. Shit's going to keep happening. You don't need me to tell your life isn't fair. You're here because you know it isn't. Life doesn't care what we want out of it; it's up to us to fight for what we want with everything we've got. Seth wanted us to win. He wanted us to make it past the fourth match. I think we owe it to him to perform. Let's show the world what we've got. Let's make this our year.
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Nora Sakavic (The Raven King (All for the Game, #2))
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When we mentally give a person, place, or point in time more credit than ourselves, we create a fictitious ceiling. A restriction over the expectations that we have over our own performance in that moment. We get tense. We focus on the outcome instead of the activity and we miss the doing of the deed. We either think the world depends on the result or it's too good to be true. But it doesn't and it isn't. And it's not our right to believe it does or is.
Don't create imaginary constraints. A leading role, a blue ribbon, a winning score, a great idea, the love of our life, euphoric bliss... Who are we to think we don't deserve these fortunes when they're in our grasp? Who are we to think we haven't earned them?
If we stay and process within ourselves, in the joy of the doing, we will never choke at the finish line. Why? Because we're not thinking of the finish line. We're not looking at the clock. Weβre not watching ourselves on the Jumbotron performing. We are performing in real time where the approach is the destination.
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Matthew McConaughey (Greenlights)
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Those who might be tempted to give way to despair should realize that nothing accomplished in this order can ever be lost, that confusion, error and darkness can win the day only apparently and in a purely ephemeral way, that all partial and transitory disequilibrium must perforce contribute towards the greater equilibrium of the whole, and that nothing can ultimately prevail against the power of truth.
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RenΓ© GuΓ©non (The Crisis of the Modern World)
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Do you know why Satan is so angry all the time? Because whenever he works a particularly clever bit of mischief God uses it to serve his own Rigteous purposes."
"So God uses wicked people as his tools?"
"God gives us the freedom to to do great evil, if we choose, then He uses his own freedom to create goodness out of that evil, for that is what He chooses."
"So, in the long run, God always wins?"
"Yes, in the short run though it can be uncomfortable.
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Orson Scott Card (Ender's Shadow (The Shadow Series, #1))
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I have nothing to offer you," he finally said in a guttural voice.
"Nothing."
Win's lips had turned dry. She moistened them, and tried to speak through a thrill of anxious trembling. "You have yourself," she whispered.
"You don't know me. You think you do, but you don't. The things I've done, the things I'm capable of--you and your family, all you know of life comes from books. If you understood anything--"
"Make me understand. Tell me what is so terrible that you must keep pushing me away."
He shook his head.
"Then stop torturing the both of us," she said unsteadily. "Leave me, or let me go."
"I can't," he snapped. "I can't, damn you." And before she could make a sound, he kissed her.
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Lisa Kleypas (Seduce Me at Sunrise (The Hathaways, #2))
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Have I told you about the tension of opposites? he says. The tension of opposites? Life is a series of pulls back and forth. You want to do one thing, but you are bound to do something else. Something hurts you, yet you know it shouldn't.
You take certain things for granted, even when you know you should never take anything for granted.
A tension of opposites, like a pull on a rubber band. And most of us live somewhere in the middle.Sounds like a wrestling match, I say.
A wrestling match. He laughs. Yes, you could describe life that way.
So which side wins, I ask?
Which side wins? He smiles at me, the crinkled eyes, the crooked teeth.
Love wins. Love always wins.
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Mitch Albom (Tuesdays with Morrie: An Old Man, a Young Man, and Life's Greatest Lesson)
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[M]any believe that by being honest and open they are winning peopleβs hearts and showing their good nature.They are greatly deluded. Honesty is actually a blunt instrument, which bloodies more than it cuts. Your honesty is likely to offend people; it is much more prudent to tailor your words, telling people what they want to hear rather than the coarse and ugly truth of what you feel or think. More important, by being unabashedly open you make yourself so predictable and familiar that it is almost impossible to respect or fear you, and power will not accrue to a person who cannot inspire such emotions.
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Robert Greene (The 48 Laws of Power)
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There are moments in our lives when we summon the courage to make choices that go against reason, against common sense and the wise counsel of people we trust. But we lean forward nonetheless because, despite all risks and rational argument, we believe that the path we are choosing is the right and best thing to do. We refuse to be bystanders, even if we do not know exactly where our actions will lead.
This is the kind of passionate conviction that sparks romances, wins battles, and drives people to pursue dreams others wouldnβt dare. Belief in ourselves and in what is right catapults us over hurdles, and our lives unfold.
βLife is a sum of all your choices,β wrote Albert Camus. Large or small, our actions forge our futures and hopefully inspire others along the way.
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Howard Schultz (Onward: How Starbucks Fought for Its Life without Losing Its Soul)
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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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You can tempt me, desert me, or cause me great pain; you can create a dark world that my cause me to fear; you can rule your world with blood and terror, that's true.
But you can't win. And I know that. Weak as I am, with my imperfections and sins, even with all of my failing, I am stronger than you.
I will soon have a body. And I have my agency now. I will increase in my faith and knowledge and power. I am not perfect, but I will be, and there's not a thing you can do! I will become like the Father if I follow the Son. You are powerless to stop me. You can threaten and tempt and whisper lies in my ear, but you can't stop me, Satan; I see that so clearly now! I can stop myslef, yes, but only if I follow you.
And I reject you temptations. I reject your whispered lies. I reject you, Lucifer, and your entire plan. You have no power to control me. I am in control of myself. And try as you might, you won't control me on earth. We will defeat you in heaven, and we will deafeat you on earth. Here, or the earth, it doesn't matter; I am always stronger than you.
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Chris Stewart
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When you win, you don't examine it very much, except to congratulate yourself. You easily, and wrongly, assume it has something to do with your rare qualities as a person. But winning only measures how hard you've worked and how physically talented you are; it doesn't particularly define you beyond those characteristics.
Losing on the other hand, really does say something about who you are. Among other things it measures are: do you blame others, or do you own the loss? Do you analyze your failure, or just complain about bad luck?
If you're willing to examine failure, and to look not just at your outward physical performance, but your internal workings, too, losing can be valuable. How you behave in those moments can perhaps be more self-defining than winning could ever be. Sometimes losing shows you for who you really are.
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Lance Armstrong (Every Second Counts)
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Whenever we doubt our own ability to achieve, it is worthwile pondering the obstacles that others have overcome. To name a few...
*Napoleon overcame his considerable handicap, his tiny stature, to lead his conquering armies across Europe.
*Abraham Lincon failed in business aged 31, lost a legislative race and 32, again failed in business at 34, had his sweetheart die when he was 35, had a nervous breakdown at 36, lost congressional races aged 43, 46 and 48, lost a senatorial race at 55, failed in his efforts to become vice president of the U.S.A aged 56 and lost a further senatorial contest at 58. At 60 years of age he was elected president of the U.S.A and is now remembered as one of the great leaders in world history.
*Winston Churchill was a poor student with a speech impediment. Not only did he win a Nobel Prize at 24, but he became one of the most inspiring speakers of recent times.
It is not where you start that counts, but where you choose to finish.
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Andrew Matthews (Being Happy!)
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They said of him, about the city that night, that it was the peacefullest man's face ever beheld there. Many added that he looked sublime and prophetic.
One of the most remarkable sufferers by the same axe---a woman---had asked at the foot of the same scaffold, not long before, to be allowed to write down the thoughts that were inspiring her. If he had given an utterance to his, and they were prophetic, they would have been these:
"I see Barsad, and Cly, Defarge, The Vengeance, the Juryman, the Judge, long ranks of the new oppressors who have risen on the destruction of the old, perishing by this retributive instrument, before it shall cease out of its present use. I see a beautiful city and a brilliant people rising from this abyss, and, in their struggles to be truly free, in their triumphs and defeats, through long years to come, I see the evil of this time and of the previous time of which this is the natural birth, gradually making expiation for itself and wearing out.
"I see the lives for which I lay down my life, peaceful, useful, prosperous and happy, in that England which I shall see no more. I see Her with a child upon her bosom, who bears my name. I see her father, aged and bent, but otherwise restored, and faithful to all men in his healing office, and at peace. I see the good old man, so long their friend, in ten years' time enriching them with all he has, and passing tranquilly to his reward.
"I see that I hold a sanctuary in their hearts, and in the hearts of their descendants, generations hence. I see her, an old woman weeping for me on the anniversary of this day. I see her and her husband, their course done, lying side by side in their last earthly bed, and I know that each was not more honoured and held sacred in the other's soul, than I was in the souls of both.
"I see that child who lay upon her bosom and who bore my name, a man winning his way up in that path of life which once was mine. I see him winning it so well, that my name is made illustrious there by the light of his. I see the blots I threw upon it, faded away. I see him, foremost of just judges and honoured men, brining a boy of my name, with a forehead that I know and golden hair, to this place---then fair to look upon, with not a trace of this day's disfigurement---and I hear him tell the child my story, with a tender and faltering voice.
"It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.
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Charles Dickens (A Tale of Two Cities)