Read through some of Stephen’s favorite quotes. His all time favorites are bolded and in gold font.
RELATIONSHIPS
“The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.” (Ernest Hemingway) It certainly hasn’t worked for Steve!
“Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.” (Carl Jung)
“It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.” (Mark Twain)
“You can love a person dear to you with a human love, but an enemy can only be loved with a divine love.” (Leo Tolstoy)
“I knew who I was this morning, but I’ve changed a few times since then.” (Lewis Carroll)
“Only as far as a man is happily married to himself is he fit for married life and family life in general.” (Novalis)
“You never really understand a person until you consider thing from his point of view … Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.” (Harper Lee)
“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” (Maya Angelou)
“The most important thing in communication is hearing what isn’t said.” (Peter Drucker)
“When you are offended at any man’s fault, turn to yourself and study your own failings. Then you will forget your anger.” (Epictetus)
HAPPINESS
“For every minute you are angry, you lose sixty seconds of happiness.” (Ralph Waldo Emerson)
“Keep your face always toward the sunshine – and shadows will fall behind you.” (Walt Whitman)
“There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will.” (Epictetus)
“It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light.” (Aristotle)
“I awoke this morning with devout thanksgiving for my friends, the old and the new.” (Ralph Waldo Emerson)
“Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others.” (Cicero)
INSPIRATION
“Devotion to the truth is the hallmark of morality; there is no greater, nobler, more heroic form of devotion than the act of a man who assumes the responsibility of thinking.” (Ayn Rand)
“Forget about all the reasons why something may not work. You only need to find one good reason why it will.” (Dr. Robert Anthony)
“Whatever you think you can do or believe you can do, begin it. Action has magic, grace, and power in it.” (Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe)
“Can anything be so elegant as to have few wants, and to serve them one’s self?” (Ralph Waldo Emerson)
“Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.” (Ralph Waldo Emerson)
“A goal should scare you a little, and excite you a lot.” (Joe Vitale)
“You and I have a rendezvous with destiny.” (Ronald Reagan)
“The same substance composes us – the tree overhead, the stone beneath us, the bird, the beast, the star – we are all one, all moving to the same end.” (P.L. Travers)
“The least of things with a meaning is worth more in life than the greatest of things without it.” (Carl Jung)
“Impossible is a word to be found only in the dictionary of fools.” (Napoleon Bonaparte)
“All growth depends upon activity. There is no development physically or intellectually without effort, and effort means work.” (Calvin Coolidge)
“Unless commitment is made, there are only promises and hopes … but no plans.” (Peter Drucker)
“The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.” (Thomas Paine)
“Ideals are like the stars, we never reach them, but like the mariners of the sea, we chart our course by them.” (Carl Schurz)
FAILURE
“Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.” (Henry Ford)
“You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it.” (Maya Angelou)
“The reason most people fail instead of succeed is they trade what they want most for what they want at the moment.” (Napoleon Bonaparte)
“We cannot do everything at once, but we can do something at once.” (Calvin Coolidge)
“Keep on going, and the chances are that you will stumble on something, perhaps when you are least expecting it. I never heard of anyone ever stumbling on something sitting down.” (Charles F. Kettering)
PATRIOTISM
“Here is your country. Cherish these natural wonders, cherish the natural resources, cherish the history and romance as a sacred heritage, for your children and your children’s children. Do not let selfish men or greedy interests skin your country of its beauty, its riches or its romance.” (Theodore Roosevelt)
“Elections belong to the people. It’s their decision.” (Abraham Lincoln)
“The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him.” (G.K. Chesterton)
MISCELLANEOUS
“Love of fame is the last thing even learned men can bear to be parted from.” (Tacitus)
“Time stays long enough for those who use it.” (Leonardo Da Vinci)
“When words are scarce they are seldom spent in vain.” (William Shakespeare)
“Most people spend more time and energy going around problems than in trying to solve them.” (Henry Ford)
“To talk well an eloquently is a very great art, but that an equally great one is to know the right moment to stop.” (Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart)
“In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on.” (Robert Frost)
“We gain the strength of the temptation we resist.” (Ralph Waldo Emerson)
KNOWLEDGE & WISDOM
“Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.” (Robert Louis Stevenson)
“In books we never find anything but ourselves. Strangely enough, that always gives us great pleasure, and we say the author is a genius.” (Thomas Mann)
“Cultivation to the mind is as necessary as food to the body.” (Cicero)
“We can know only that we know nothing. And that is the highest degree of human wisdom.” (Leo Tolstoy)
“For all the virtues will be present when the one virtue, practical wisdom, is present.” (Aristotle)
“It is impossible to begin to learn that which one think one already knows.” (Epictetus)
“The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.” (Albert Einstein)
“If you can explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.” (Albert Einstein)
“By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest;
Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.” (Confucius)
“As long as you live, keep learning how to live.” (Seneca)
“Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” (Maimonides)
“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” (Marcel Proust)
CHARACTER
“A true man hates no one.” (Napoleon Bonaparte)
“A proud man is always looking down on things and people; and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you.” (C.S. Lewis)
“Trees are not known by their leaves, nor even by their blossoms, but by their fruits.” (Eleanor of Aquitaine)
“Better a diamond with a flaw than a pebble without.” (Confucius)
“Good character is not form in a week or a month. It is created little by little, day by day. Protracted and patient effort is needed to develop good character.” (Heraclitus)
“Watch your thoughts, for they will become actions. Watch your actions, for they’ll become … habits. Watch your habit for they will forge your character. Watch your character, for it will make your destiny.” (Margaret Thatcher)
“Whenever you do a thing, act as if all the world were watching.” (Thomas Jefferson)
“He who dares not offend cannot be honest.” (Thomas Paine)
“Reputation is what men and women think of us; character is what God and angels know of us.” (Thomas Paine)
“If evil be spoken of you and it be true, correct yourself, if it be a lie, laugh at it.” (Epictetus)
“Quality means doing it right when no one is looking.” (Henry Ford)
“Remember, nothing belongs to you but your flesh and blood, nothing else is under your control.” (Marcus Aurelius)
“Faced with crisis, the man of character falls back on himself. He imposes his own stamp of action, takes responsibility for it, makes it his own.” (Charles De Gaulle)