Encouragement Quotes
(300+ quotes)

Encouragement quotes are most powerful when shared. Being generous with encouragement is a beautiful gift. It is as necessary as food, water and shelter...

...for all of us doing our best to create a happy, meaningful life. Drink deeply from this well of encouragement quotes! These are the words which inspire me when the going gets tough. Remember you are not alone. Help is out there but you must ask for it. For personal encouragement coaching, contact Marta@joyofquotes.com

Your personal joy, inspiration and creativity coach,





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Above all we must realize that each of us makes a difference with our life. Each of us impacts the world around us every single day. We have a choice to use the gift of our life to make the world a better place – or not to bother.
Jane Goodall

Just show up. Stop talking. Start walking.
L.M. Heroux

You alone are enough…you have nothing to prove to anybody.
Maya Angelou

You do not fail in life, you only produce results, and you have the right to learn and grow from any results that you produce.
Wayne Dyer

I'd rather teach one bird to sing than ten thousand stars how not to dance.
e.e. cummings

Orville Wright did not have a pilot's license.
Gordon MacKenzie

Creativity is our birthright. It is an integral part of being human, as basic as walking, talking and thinking.
John Daido Loori

Devote today to something so daring even you can’t believe you’re doing it.
Oprah Winfrey

For every negative imagining (worry thought), practice positive pretending (imagining the most wonderful outcome).
Marta Davidovich Ockuly

I define anxiety as experiencing failure in advance.
Seth Goden

If you treat an individual as he is, he will remain how he is. But if you treat him as if he were what he ought to be and could be, he will become what he ought to be and could be.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

One of these days, I’m going to publish a book of all the pictures I did not take.
Rene Burri

Why are you trying so hard to fit in when you were born to stand out?
Oprah Winfrey

Expect problems and eat them for breakfast.
Alfred A. Montapert

In every person who comes near you look for what is good and strong; honor that; try to imitate it, and your faults will drop off like dead leaves when their time comes.
John Ruskin

Try and fail, but don't fail to try.
Stephen Kaggwa

Every day when you wake up, ask yourself, "What do I really, really, really want?" You have to say really, really, really, otherwise you won't believe it.
Elizabeth Gilbert

Everyone has huge creative capacities. The challenge is to develop them. A culture of creativity has to involve everybody, not just a select few.
Sir Ken Robinson

Teaching for creativity aims to encourage self-confidence, independence of mind, and the capacity to think for oneself.
Sir Ken Robinson

Celebrate your existence!
William Blake

Don't look further for answers: be the solution. You were born with everything you need to know. Make a promise to stop getting in the way of the blessing that you are. Take a deep breath, remember to have fun, and begin.
Jonathan H. Ellerby

Every individual matters. Every individual has a role to play. Every individual makes a difference.
Jane Goodall

God disguised as myriad things, and playing a game of tag has kissed you and said, "You're it. I mean you're really it. Now it does not matter what you believe or feel. For something wonderful, something major-league wonderful, is someday going to happen."
Hafiz

The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.
Joseph Campbell

1. The path is not straight, 2. Mistakes need not be fatal. 3. People are more important than achievements or possessions. 4. Be gentle with your parents. 5. Never stop doing what you care most about. 6. Learn to use a semicolon. 7. You will find love.
Marion Winik

A cloudy day is no match for a sunny disposition.
William Arthur Ward

A path is only a path, and there's no affront, to oneself or to others, in dropping it if that is what your heart tells you to do.
Carlos Castenada

All too often people fail to focus their choices upon results and therefore their choices are ineffective. If you limit your choices only to what seems possible or reasonable, you disconnect yourself from what you truly want, and all that is left is a compromise.
Robert Fritz

Be a rainbow in someone else's cloud.
Maya Angelou

Begin today. Declare outloud to the universe that you are willing to let go of struggle and eager to learn through joy.
Sarah Ban Breathnach

For true success ask yourself these four questions: Why? Why not? Why not me? Why not now?
James Allen

It is better to create than to be learned; creating is the true essence of life.
Geog Niebuhr

Let your light shine. Be a source of strength and courage. Share your wisdom. Radiate love.
Wilferd Peterson

Often we can achieve an even better result when we stumble yet are willing to start over, when we don't give up after a mistake, when something doesn't come easily but we throw ourselves into trying, when we're not afraid to appear less than perfectly polished.
Sharon Salzberg

One sure-fire way to stay creative: force yourself to learn something new.
Harvey Mackay

Our work-a-day lives are filled with opportunities to bless others. The power of a single glance or an encouraging smile must never be underestimated.
G. Richard Rieger

Slow down. Calm down. Don't worry. Don't hurry. Trust the process.
Alexandra Stoddard

Success is not the result of spontaneous combustion. You must set yourself on fire.
Reggie Leach

The best way to help people to maximize their creative potential is to allow them to do something they love.
Teresa Amabile

The most important thing is that you love what you are doing, and the second that you are not afraid of where your next idea will lead.
Charles Eames

The turning point in the process of growing up is when you discover the core of strength within you that survives all hurt.
Max Lerner

The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep.
Robert Frost

Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

We're given second chances every day of our life. We don't usually take them, but they're there for the taking.
Andrew M. Greeley

What if we just acted like everything was easy?
Mary Anne Radmacher

When you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

You have a solemn obligation to take care of yourself because you never know when the world will need you.
Rabbi Hillel

You're braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.
A. A. Milne

Everybody needs a hug. It changes your metabolism.
Leo Buscaglia

Life's not about waiting for the storm to pass. It's about learning to dance in the rain!
Vivian Greene

Live the wonderful life that is in you.
Oscar Wilde

There are some things one can only achieve by a deliberate leap in the opposite direction.
Franz Kafka

You can't stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.
Jon Kabat-Zinn

Dreams are free, so free your dreams.
Astrid Alauda

Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.
Samuel Beckett

Every single thing you've been through in your life has had a purpose.
Beth Moore

For every failure, there's an alternative course of action. You just have to find it. When you come to a roadblock, take a detour.
Mary Kay Ash

I think the key is for women not to set any limits.
Martina Navratilova

If you don't go after what you want, you'll never have it. If you don't ask, the answer is always no. If you don't step forward, you're always in the same place.
Nora Roberts

It's not the load that breaks you down, it's the way you carry it.
Lena Horne

No person has the right to rain on your dreams.
Marian Wright Edelman

Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Personal action is your pathway to success, even if it is a little bit at a time!
Catherine Pulsifer

The very best thing you can do for the whole world is to make the most of yourself.
Wallace Wattles

Think BIG. There are unseen forces ready to support your dreams.
Cheryl Richardson

We all find ourselves in situations that at times seem hopeless. And, we all have the choice to do nothing or take action.
Catherine Pulsifer

We won't always know whose lives we touched and made better for our having cared, because actions sometimes have unforeseen ramifications. What's important is that you do care and you act.
Charlotte Lunsford

You can't just sit there and wait for people to give you that golden dream; you've got to get out there and make it happen for yourself.
Diana Ross

You must go after your wish. As soon as you start to pursue a dream, your life wakes up and everything has meaning.
Barbara Sher

Don't give up! I believe in you all. A person's a person, no matter how small.
Dr. Seuss

Don't let yourself be lulled into inaction.
Bill Gates

Dream the impossible dream.
Joe Darion

I am so glad you are here. It helps me realize how beautiful my world is.
Rainer Maria Rilke

If ever there is a tomorrow when we're not together…there is something you must remember. You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think. But the most important thing is, even if we're apart…I'll always be with you.
Winnie the Pooh

It's always too soon to quit.
Norman Vincent Peale

Self-esteem is a huge piece of my work. You have to believe it's possible and believe in yourself. Because after you've decided what you want, you have to believe it's possible, and possible for you, not just for other people. Then you need to seek out models, mentors, and coaches.
Jack Canfield

Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation) there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: That the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way.
W. H. Murray

You need to be aware of what others are doing, applaud their efforts, acknowledge their successes, and encourage them in their pursuits. When we all help one another, everybody wins.
Jom Stovall

Be willing to be a beginner every single morning.
Meister Eckhart

Be yourself. Above all. Let who you are, what you are, what you believe, shine through every sentence you write, every piece you finish.
John Jakes

Great beings come in all shapes and forms. They inspire us to live a noble life.
J. D. Salinger

Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs.
Henry Ford

Success seems to be connected with action. Successful people keep moving. They make mistakes, but they don't quit.
Conrad Hilton

The easiest thing in the world to be is you. The most difficult thing to be is what other people want you to be. Don't let them put you in that position.
Leo Buscaglia

The things that one most wants to do are the things that are probably most worth doing.
Winifred Holtby

We must have the courage to bet on our ideas, to take the calculated risk, and to act. Everyday living requires courage if life is to be effective and bring happiness.
Maxwell Maltz

He who would learn to fly one day must first learn to stand and walk and run and climb and dance.
Friedrich Nietzsche

…the tragedy in life does not lie in not reaching your goal. The tragedy lies in having no goal to reach. It isn’t a calamity to die with dreams unfulfilled, but it is a calamity not to dream. It is not a disaster to be unable to capture your ideal, but it is a disaster to have no ideal to capture. It is not a disgrace not to reach the starts, but is is a disgrace to have no stars to reach for.
Benjamin E. Mays

A smile is nature's best antidote for discouragement. It brings rest to the weary, sunshine to those who are frowning, and hope to those who are hopeless and defeated. A smile is so valuable that it can't be bought, begged, borrowed, or taken away against your will. You have to be willing to give a smile away before it can do anyone else any good. So if someone is too tired or grumpy to flash you a smile, let him have one of yours anyway. Nobody needs a smile as much as the person who has none to give.
Dale Carnegie

All of us are stars and deserve the right to twinkle.
Marilyn Monroe

An attitude of gratitude creates blessings.
Sir John Templeton

Don't measure a man's success by how high he climbs but how high he bounces when he hits bottom.
George S. Patton

Expect to have hope rekindled. Expect your prayers to be answered in wondrous ways. The dry seasons in life do not last. The spring rains will come again.
Sarah Ban Breathnach

Find what makes your heart sing and create your own music.
Mac Anderson

Go out and make a difference in your community. You don’t need endless time and perfect conditions. Do it now. Do it today. Do it for twenty minutes and watch your heart start beating.
Barbara Sher

I realize that idealism is out of sync with the cynicism of our age. Skepticism has come to be synonymous with sophistication, and glibness is mistaken for intelligence. In such an atmosphere, why bother aiming high? Far too many people don’t. I just want to reassure people to have the courage to persevere, to keep following their hearts even when others scoff. Don’t be beaten down by naysayers. Don’t let the odds scare you from even trying.
Howard Schultz (CEO Starbucks Coffee)

I’m asking you to believe. Not just in my ability to bring about real change…I’m asking you to believe in yours.
Barack Obama

If someone listens, or stretches out a hand, or whispers a kind word of encouragement, or attempts to understand, extraordinary things begin to happen.
Loretta Gizartis

If you are going through a time of discouragement, there is a time or great personal growth ahead.
Oswald Chambers

If you do things well, do them better. Be daring, be first, be different, be just.
Dame Anita Roddick

Man improves himself as he follows his path; if he stands still, waiting to improve before he makes a decision, he'll never move.
Paulo Coelho

Maybe as times get worse we get better. Our pain makes us feel other people’s too; our fear lets us practice valor; we are tense, and tender as well. And among the things we can no longer afford are things we never really wanted anyway…
Nancy Gibbs

Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish.
John Quincy Adams

Somewhere someone is looking for exactly what you have to offer.
Louise Hay

The great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.
Walter Bagehot

We rise by lifting others.
Robert Ingersoll

You can learn new things at any time in your life if you’re willing to be a beginner. If you actually learn to like being a beginner, the whole world opens up to you.
Barbara Sher

Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. Stay hungry. Stay foolish.
Steve Jobs

Everyone has an invisible sign hanging from their neck saying, ‘Make me feel important.’ Never forget this message when working with people.
Mary Kay Ash

For peace of mind, resign as general manager of the universe.
Larry Eisenberg

I bring you the gift of these four words: I believe in you.
Blaise Pascal

It was high counsel that I once heard given to a young person, Always do what you are afraid to do.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Never forget that you are one of a kind. Never forget that if there weren’t any need for you in all your uniqueness to be on this earth, you wouldn’t be here in the first place. And never forget, no matter how overwhelming life’s challenges and problems seem to be, that one person can make a difference in the world. In fact, it is always because of one person that all the changes in the world come about. So be that person.
Buckminster Fuller

The finest gift you can give anyone is encouragement. Yet, almost no one gets the encouragement they need to grow into their full potential. If everyone received the encouragement they need to grow, the genius in most everyone would blossom and the world would produce abundance beyond our wildest dreams.
Sidney Madwed

To me faith means not worrying.
John Dewey

Friends...they cherish one another’s hopes. They are kind to one another’s dreams.
Henry David Thoreau

I even have a superstition that has grown on me as the result of invisible hands coming all the time—namely that if you do follow your bliss, you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you.
Joseph Campbell

If something comes to life in others because of you, then you have made an approach to immortality.
Norman Cousins

The moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves, too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never have otherwise occurred…unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Each second we live is a new and unique moment of the universe, a moment that will never be again. And what do we teach out children? We teach them that two and two make four, and that Paris is the capital of France. When will we also teach them what they are? We should say to each of them: Do you know what you are? You are a marvel. You are unique. In all the years that have passed, there has never been another child like you. Your legs, your arms, your clever fingers, the way you move. You may become a Shakespeare, a Michelangelo, a Beethoven. You have the capacity for anything. Yes, you are a marvel. And when you grow up, can you then harm another who is, like you, a marvel? You must work, we must all work, to make the world worthy of its children.
Pablo Casals

In a world filled with hate, we must still dare to hope. In a world filled with anger, we must still dare to comfort. In a world filled with despair, we must still dare to dream. And in a world filled with distrust, we must still dare to believe.
Michael Jackson

The greatest good you can do for another is not just share your riches, but reveal to them their own.
Benjamin Disraeli

You are now at a crossroads. This is your opportunity to make the most important decision you will ever make. Forget your past. Who are you now? Who have you decided you really are now? Don't think about who you have been. Who are you now? Who have you decided to become? Make this decision consciously. Make it carefully. Make it powerfully.
Anthony Robbins

Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it. You must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it.
Elizabeth Gilbert

In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life. It goes on.
Robert Frost

All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence; then success is sure.
Mark Twain

Do something everyday that you don't want to do; this is the golden rule for acquiring the habit of doing your duty without pain.
Mark Twain

All changes, even positive ones, are scary. Attempts to reach goals through radical or revolutionary means often fail because they heighten fear. But the small steps of kaizen disarm the brain’s fear response, stimulating rational thought and creative play.
Robert Maurer

All great things have small beginnings.
Peter Senge

As you experience success in applying kaizen to clear goals like weight loss or career advancement, remember to hold onto its essence: an optimistic belief in our potential for continuous improvement.
Robert Maurer

Confront the difficult while it is still easy; accomplish the great task by a series of small acts.
Tao Te Ching

Have a bias toward action – let’s see something happen now. You can break that big plan into small steps and take the first step right away.
Indira Gandhi

Kaizen and innovation are the two major strategies people use to create change. Where innovation demands shocking and radical reform, all kaizen asks is that you take small, comfortable steps toward improvement.
Robert Maurer

Learn to get in touch with the silence within yourself, and know that everything in life has purpose. There are no mistakes, no coincidences, all events are blessings given to us to learn from.
Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

Make a little, sell a little, take small steps.
3M Corporation Creed

Small actions are at the heart of kaizen. By taking steps so tiny that they seem trivial or even laughable, you’ll sail calmly past obstacles that have defeated you before. Slowly – but painlessly! – you’ll cultivate an appetite for continued success and lay down a permanent new route to change.
Robert Maurer

Start wherever you are and start small.
Rita Baily

Success is how you collect your minutes. You spend millions of minutes to reach one triumph, one moment, then you spend maybe a thousand minutes enjoying it. If you were unhappy through those millions of minutes, what good is the thousand minutes of triumph? It doesn’t equate… Life is made of small pleasures. Good eye contact over the breakfast table with your wife. A moment of touching a friend. Happiness is made of those tiny successes. The big ones come too infrequently. If you don’t have all those zillions of tiny successes, the big ones don’t mean anything.
Norman Lear

When I face the desolate impossibility of writing 500 pages, a sick sense of failure falls on me, and I know I can never do it. Then gradually, I write one page and then another. One day’s work is all that I can permit myself to contemplate.
John Steinbeck

When you improve a little each day, eventually big things occur. When you improve conditioning a little each day, eventually you have a big improvement in conditioning. Not tomorrow, not the next day, but eventually a big gain is made. Don’t look for the big, quick improvement. Seek the small improvement one day at a time. That’s the only way it happens – and when it happens, it lasts.
John Wooden

Early in life I had learned that if you want something, you had better make some noise.
Malcolm X

Fear less, hope more; eat less, chew more; whine less, breathe more; talk less, say more; love more, and all good things will be yours.
Swedish Proverb

Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Goals are a means to an end, not the ultimate purpose of our lives. They are simply a tool to concentrate our focus and move us in a direction. They only reason we really pursue goals is to cause ourselves to expand and grow. Achieving goals by themselves will never make us happy in the long term; it’s who you become, as you overcome the obstacles necessary to achieve your goals, that can give you the deepest and most long-lasting sense of fulfillment.
Anthony Robbins

I don't think you ever stop giving. I really don't. I think it's an on-going process. And it's not just about being able to write a check. It's being able to touch somebody's life.
Oprah Winfrey

Success is never final. Failure is never fatal. It is courage that counts.
Winston Churchill

The more intensely we feel about an idea or a goal, the more assuredly the idea, buried deep in our subconscious, will direct us along the path to its fulfillment.
Earl Nightingale

To hold, you must first open your hand. Let go.
Lao Tzu

Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.
Leo Buscaglia

All the breaks you need in life wait within your imagination, Imagination is the workshop of your mind, capable of turning mind energy into accomplishment and wealth.
Napoleon Hill

Let your hopes, not your hurts, shape your future.
Robert H. Schuller

Money is like manure; it’s not worth a thing unless it’s spread around encouraging young things to grow.
Thornton Wilder

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
Steve Jobs

Conscious awareness is the source of our healing…Only when you say the truth can the truth set you free. This is not a negative process, but at times it is a difficult process.
Marianne Williamson

If you want to see the sunshine, you have to weather the storm.
Frank Lane

It’s such an act of optimism to get through a day and enjoy it and laugh and do all that without thinking about death. What spirit human beings have!
Gilda Radner

Believe it is possible to solve your problem. Tremendous things happen to the believer. So believe the answer will come. It will.
Norman Vincent Peale

Consult not your fears but your hopes and your dreams. Think not about your frustrations, but about your unfulfilled potential. Concern yourself not with what you tried and failed in, but with what is still possible for you to do.
Pope John XXIII

Difficulties are meant to rouse, not discourage. The human spirit is to grow by conflict.
William E. Channing

Disappointment often focuses on the failure of our own agenda rather than on God's long-term purposes for us, which may use stress and struggle as tools for strengthening our spiritual muscles.
Luci Shaw

Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark, in the hopeless swamps of the approximate, the not-quite, the not-yet, the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish, in lonely frustration for the life you deserved, but have never been able to reach. Check your road and the nature of your battle. The world you desired can be won. It exists, it is real, it is possible, it is yours.
Ayn Rand

Every area of trouble gives out a ray of hope; and the one unchangeable certainty is that nothing is certain or unchangeable.
John Fitzgerald Kennedy

Every crisis offers you extra desired power.
William Moulton Marston

Hope is medicine for a soul that's sick and tired.
Eric Swensson

Hope is the companion of power, and mother of success; for who so hopes strongly has within him the gift of miracles.
Samuel Smiles

Instruction does much, but encouragement does everything.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

It has never been, and never will be easy work! But the road that is built in hope is more pleasant to the traveler than the road built in despair, even though they both lead to the same destination.
Marion Zimmer Bradley

It is a fact of life that we find ourselves in unpleasant demoralizing situations which we can neither escape nor control. We can keep our morale and spirits high by using both coping and hoping humor. Coping humor laughs at the hopelessness in our situation. It gives us the courage to hang in there, but it does not bring hope. The uniqueness of hoping humor lies in its acceptance of life with all its dichotomies, contradictions, and incongruities. It celebrates the hope in human life. From one comes courage, from the other comes inspiration.
Cy Eberhart

Kind words do not cost much. Yet they accomplish much.
Blaise Pascal

Let perseverance be your engine and hope your fuel.
H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

Life's challenges are not supposed to paralyze you, they're supposed to help you discover who you are.
Bernice Johnson Reagon

Man is a creature of hope and invention, both of which belie the idea that things cannot be changed.
Tom Clancy

Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all.
Dale Carnegie

Of all ills that one endures, hope is a cheap and universal cure.
Abraham Cowley

Oh, my friend, it's not what they take away from you that counts - it's what you do with what you have left.
Hubert Humphrey

Once you choose hope, anything's possible.
Christopher Reeve

Opposition is a natural part of life. Just as we develop our physical muscles through overcoming opposition – such as lifting weights – we develop our character muscles by overcoming challenges and adversity.
Stephen R. Covey

Some days there won't be a song in your heart. Sing anyway.
Emory Austin

Strength and courage aren't always measured in medals and victories. They are measured in the struggles they overcome. The strongest people aren't always the people who win, but the people who don't give up when they lose.
Ashley Hodgeson

The capacity for hope is the most significant fact of life. It provides human beings with a sense of destination and the energy to get started.
Norman Cousins

The difference between try and triumph is just a little umph!
Marvin Phillips

The human spirit is stronger than anything that can happen to it.
C.C. Scott

We must accept finite disappointment, but we must never lose infinite hope.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

When you feel that you have reached the end and that you cannot go one step further, when life seems to be drained of all purpose; what a wonderful opportunity to start all over again, to turn over a new page.
Eileen Caddy

You must begin to think of yourself as becoming the person you want to be.
David Viscott

Your present circumstances don't determine where you can go; they merely determine where you start.
Nido Qubein

You can’t help someone get up a hill without getting closer to the top yourself.
Norman Schwarzkopf

Don't wait. The time will never be just right.
Napoleon Hill

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace, where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; and where there is sadness, joy.
Saint Francis of Assisi

Whoever renders service to many puts himself in line for greatness - great wealth, great return, great satisfaction, great reputation, and great joy.
Jim Rohn

You are innately designed to use your personal power. When you don't, you experience a sense of helplessness, paralysis, and depression-which is your clue that something is not working as it could. You, like all of us, deserve everything that is wonderful and exciting in life. And those feelings emerge only when you get in touch with your powerful self.
Susan Jeffers

You must take personal responsibility. You cannot change the circumstances, the seasons, or the wind, but you can change yourself. That is something you have charge of.
Jim Rohn

Death is not the biggest fear we have; our biggest fear is taking the risk to be alive – the risk to be alive and express what we really are.
Miguel Ángel Ruiz

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.
Dale Carnegie

The struggle of life is one of our greatest blessings. It makes us patient, sensitive, and Godlike. It teaches us that although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it.
Helen Keller

A mentor is someone who allows you to see the hope inside yourself.
Oprah Winfrey

All kids need is a little help, a little hope, and someone who believes in them.
Earvin "Magic" Johnson

All that is necessary to break the spell of inertia and frustration is this: Act as if it were impossible to fail. That is the talisman, the formula, the command of right-about-face which turns us from failure towards success.
Dorothea Brande

And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence actually liberates others.
Marianne Williamson

As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Be a good-finder. Try to catch people red-handed in the act of doing something right.
Bob Moawad

Begin doing what you want to do now. We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand – and melting like a snowflake.
Marie Beyon Ray

Change always comes bearing gifts.
Price Pritchett

Creativity is so delicate a flower that praise tends to make it bloom while discouragement often nips it at the bud. Creativity is now something we can turn on and off like a faucet. It is an experience and expression in our lives that must be nurtured. This nurturing process means that creativity is at once a skill, an art, and a life-style.
Alex Osborn

Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can.
John Wesley

Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
Theodore Roosevelt

Don’t let anyone rob you of your imagination, your creativity, or your curiosity. It’s your place in the world; it’s your life. Go on and do all you can with it, and make it the life you want to live.
Mae Jemison

Don’t let anyone tell you that you have to be a certain way. Be unique. Be what you feel.
Melissa Etheridge

Don’t wait until everything is just right. It will never be perfect. There will always be challenges, obstacles and less than perfect conditions. So what. Get started now. With each step you take, you will grow stronger and stronger, more and more skilled, more and more self-confident, and more and more successful.
Mark Victor Hansen

Don’t waste life in doubts and fears; spend yourself on the work before you well assured that the right performance of this hour’s duties will be the best preparation for the hours and ages that will follow it.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Each of us has a spark of life inside us, and we must set off that spark in one another.
Kenny Ausubel

Each one of us has a fire in our heart for something. It’s our goal in life to find it and keep it lit.
Mary Lou Retton

Encourage each other to become the best you can be. Celebrate what you want to see more of.
Tom Peters

Encouragement is the oxygen of the soul.
George M. Adams

Every day, passion speaks to us through our feelings. That’s why when you allow yourself to become anesthetized by what others think, you literally block yourself from living the life you were called to live. I promise you that if you make a choice that doesn’t please your mate, your friends, your mother, or whoever, the world will not fall apart. The people who truly love you want you to love yourself.
Oprah Winfrey

Everyone has inside him a piece of good news. The good news is that you don’t yet realize how great you can be! How much you can love! What you can accomplish! And what your potential is!
Anne Frank

Everything is something you decide to do, and there is nothing you have to do.
Denis Waitley

Experience is not what happens to you. It is what you do with what happens to you.
Aldous Huxley

Feel the fear and do it anyway.
Susan Jeffers

Few things in the world are more powerful than a positive push. A smile. A word of optimism and hope. A you can do it when things are tough.
Richard M. DeVos

Find the good – and praise it.
Alex Haley

Flatter me, and I may not believe you. Criticize me, and I may not like you. Ignore me, and I may not forgive you. Encourage me, and I may not forget you.
William Arthur Ward

Follow your bliss, and doors will open for you that you never knew existed.
Joseph Campbell

Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.
Thomas Alva Edison

Gratitude is a form of wisdom. It is patient, loving, hopeful, and rigorously honest. It denies nothing, and it overlooks nothing. It looks reality full in the face and says: This is true, this is me, this is my situation, and I have the opportunity to build from here. This is my starting point, and I will succeed!
Phil Humbert

Great minds have purposes, little minds have wishes. Little minds are subdued by misfortunes, great minds rise above them.
Washington Irving

Happiness is an attitude. We either make ourselves miserable, or happy and strong. The amount of work is the same.
Francesca Reigler

Have the courage to follow your passion – and if you don’t know what it is, realize that one reason for your existence on earth is to find it.
Oprah Winfrey

Hope is both the earliest and the most indispensable virtue inherent in the state of being alive. If life is to be sustained hope must remain, even where confidence is wounded, trust impaired.
Erik Erikson

I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavor.
Henry David Thoreau

I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.
Nelson Mandela

I promise myself…to be so strong that nothing can disturb my peace of mind; to talk health, happiness, and prosperity to every person I meet; to make all my friends feel that there is something worthwhile in them; to look at the sunny side of everything and make my optimism come true; to think only of the best, to work only for the best, and to expect only the best; to be just as enthusiastic about the success of others as I am about my own; to forget the mistakes of the past and press on to the greater achievements of the future; to wear a cheerful expression at all times and give a smile to every living creature I meet; to give so much time to improving myself that I have no time to criticize others; to be too large for worry, too noble for anger, too strong for fear, and too happy to permit the presence of trouble; to think well of myself and to proclaim this fact to the world, not in loud word, but in great deeds; to live in the faith that the whole world is on my side, so long as I am true to the best that is in me.
Christian D. Larson

I think education is power. I think that being able to communicate with people is power. One of my main goals on the planet is to encourage people to empower themselves.
Oprah Winfrey

If I had my life to live over…I’d dare to make more mistakes next time.
Nadine Sanger

If it’s a good idea, go ahead and do it. It’s much easier to apologize than it is to get permission.
Grace Hopper

If you take any activity, any art, any discipline, any skill-take it and push it as far as it will go, push it beyond where it has ever been before, push it to the wildest edges of edges, then you force it into the realm of magic.
Tom Robbins

Ignoring your passion is like dying a slow death…Passion whispers to you through your feelings, beckoning you toward your highest good. Pay attention to what makes you feel energized, connected, stimulated- what gives you your juice. Do what you love, give it back in the form of service, and you will do more than succeed. You will triumph.
Oprah Winfrey

In every community there is work to be done. In every nation, there are wounds to heal. In every heart there is the power to do it.
Marianne Williamson

In the place of stillness, rises potential. From the place of potential, emerges possibility. Where there is possibility, there is choice. And where there is choice, there is freedom.
Gabriella Goddard

It is confidence in our bodies, minds and spirits that allows us to keep looking for new adventures, new directions to grow in, and new lessons to learn – which is what life is all about.
Oprah Winfrey

It’s a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it.
Somerset Maugham

It’s time to start living the life you’ve imagined.
Henry James

Keep on beginning and failing. Each time you fail, start all over again, and you will grow stronger until you have accomplished a purpose – not the one you began with perhaps, but one you’ll be glad to remember.
Anne Sullivan

Kindness is more than deeds. It is an attitude, an expression, a look, a touch. It is anything that lifts another person.
C. Neil Strait

Let your mind start a journey thru a strange new world. Leave all thoughts of the world you knew before. Let your soul take you where you long to be…Close your eyes, let your spirit start to soar, and you’ll live as you’ve never lived before.
Erich Fromm

Life is a challenge, meet it! Life is a dream, realize it! Life is a game, play it! Life is love, enjoy it!
Sathya Sai Baba

Live life fully while you’re here. Experience everything. Take care of yourself and your friends. Have fun, be crazy, be weird. Go out and screw up! You’re going to anyway, so you might as well enjoy the process. Take the opportunity to learn from your mistakes: find the cause of your problem and eliminate it. Don’t try to be perfect; just be an excellent example of being human.
Anthony Robbins

Man’s ideal state is realized when he has fulfilled the purpose for which he is born. And what is it that reason demands of him? Something very easy – that he live in accordance with his own nature.
Seneca

Mistakes are part of being human. Appreciate your mistakes for what they are: precious life lessons that can only be learned the hard way. Unless it’s a fatal mistake, which, at least, others can learn from.
Al Franken

More important than talent, strength, or knowledge is the ability to laugh at yourself and enjoy the pursuit of your dreams.
Amy Grant

Never tell anyone that something can’t be done. God may have waited centuries for someone ignorant enough of the impossible to do that very thing.
J.R. Holmes

Never underestimate the power of dreams and the influence of the human spirit. We are all the same in this notion: The potential for greatness lives within each of us.
Wilma Rudolph

Nine tenths of education is encouragement.
Anatole France

No matter what the level of your ability, you have more potential than you can ever develop in a lifetime.
James T. McCay

No star is ever lost we once have seen. We always may be what we might have been.
Adelaide Anne Proctor

Nothing else can quite substitute for a few well-chosen, well-timed, sincere words of praise. They’re absolutely free-and worth a fortune.
Sam Walton

Of one thing I am certain, the body is not the measure of healing – peace is the measure.
George Melton

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we’re liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.
Marianne Williamson

Our thoughts and imaginations are the only real limits to our possibilities.
Orison S. Marden

Real success means creating a life of meaning through service that fulfills your reason for being here.
Oprah Winfrey

Saying yes means getting up and acting on your belief that you can create meaning and purpose in whatever life hands you.
Susan Jeffers

Seek out that particular mental attribute which makes you feel most deeply and vitally alive, along with which comes the inner voice which says, ‘This is the real me,’ and when you have found that attitude, follow it.
William James

So what do we do? Anything. Something. So long as we just don’t sit there. If we screw it up, start over. Try something else. If we wait until we’ve satisfied all the uncertainties, it may be too late.
Lee Iacocca

Some men have thousands of reasons why they cannot do what they want to, when all they need is one reason why they can.
Martha Graham

Some stories don’t have a clear beginning, middle and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what’s going to happen next. Delicious ambiguity.
Gilda Radner

Sometimes our light goes out but is brought into flame by another human being. Each of us owes deepest thanks to those who have rekindled this light.
Albert Schweitzer

Take a risk a day – one small or bold stroke that will make you feel great once you have done it.
Susan Jeffers

Tell me what you yearn for and I shall tell you who you are. We are what we reach for, the idealized image that drives our wandering.
James Hillman

The first step toward change is acceptance. Once you accept yourself, you open the door to change. That’s all you have to do. Change is not something you do, it’s something you allow.
Will Garcia

The most effective way to achieve right relations with any living thing is to look for the best in it, and then help that best into the fullest expression.
J. Allen Boone

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

The pessimist borrows trouble; the optimists lend encouragement.
William Arthur Ward

The truth is that everything that can be accomplished by showing a person when he’s wrong, ten times as much can be accomplished by showing him where he is right. The reason we don’t do it so often is that it’s more fun to throw a rock through a window than to put in a pane of glass.
Robert T. Allen

The world is crazily in love with you, wildly and innocently in love. Even now, thousands of secret helpers are conspiring to turn you into the beautiful curiosity you were born to be.
Rob Brezsny

There are no hopeless situations; there are only people who have grown hopeless about them.
Clare Boothe Luce

There came a time when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.
Anaïs Nin

This, too, shall pass.
William Shakespeare

Those who are lifting the world upward and onward are those who encourage more than criticize.
Elizabeth Harrison

To be nobody but myself-in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make me somebody else-means to fight the hardest battle any human can fight, and never stop fighting.
e.e. cummings

To give pleasure to a single heart by a single act is better than a thousand heads bowing in prayer.
Mahatma Gandhi

Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting, so get on your way.
Dr. Seuss

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.
Mark Twain

Use those talents you have. You will make it. You will give joy to the world. Take this tip from nature: The woods would be a very silent place if no birds sang except those who sang best.
Bernard Meltzer

We grow great by dreams. All big men are dreamers. They see things in the soft haze of a spring day or in the red fire of a long winter’s evening. Some of us let these great dreams die, but others nourish and protect them; nurse them through bad days til they bring them to the sunshine and light which comes always to those who sincerely hope that their dreams will come true.
Woodrow Wilson

We hold these truths to be self-evident; All people are born creative; Endowed by our Creator with the inalienable right and responsibility to express our creativity for the sake of ourselves and our world.
Barbara Marx Hubbard

We must remember that one determined person can make a significant difference, and that a small group of determined people can change the course of history.
Sonia Johnson

What is defeat? Nothing but education, nothing but the first step toward something better.
Wendell Phillips

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters, compared to what lies within us.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Whatever you do or dream you can do – begin it. Boldness has genius and power and magic in it.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.
Viktor Frankl

When we lose one blessing, another is often, most unexpectedly, given in its place.
C. S. Lewis

When you make loving others the story of your life, there’s never a final chapter, because the legacy continues. You lend your light to one person, and he or she shines it on another and another and another.
Oprah Winfrey

When you take charge of your life, there is no longer need to ask permission of other people or society at large. When you ask permission, you give someone veto power over your life.
Albert F. Geoffrey

Whenever I have knocked, a door has opened. Whenever I have wandered, a path has appeared. I have been helped, supported, encouraged and nurtured by people of all races, creeds, colors and dreams.
Alice Walker

You are not a beggar at the table of life. You are the honored guest.
Emmanuel

You are not here merely to make a living, you are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself when you forget that errand.
Woodrow Wilson

You can change your beliefs so they empower your dreams and desires. Create a strong belief in yourself and what you want.
Marcia Wieder

You need courage to be creative. You need the courage to see things differently, courage to go against the crowd, courage to take a different approach, courage to stand alone, if you have to, courage to choose activity over inactivity.
Jim Rohn

Your living is determined not so much by what life brings to you as by the attitude you bring to life; not so much what happens to you as by the way your mind looks at what happens.
Kahlil Gibran

Your success and happiness lie in you. Resolve to keep happy, and your joy and you shall form an invisible host against difficulties.
Helen Keller



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