Quote Collection

I have been trying hard to collect useful quotes for many years. I have written them down in journals, scratchy notes, leafed pages in books, margins, yellow pads, Evernote, you name it.  I studied John Maxwell and his system (very complex), and have always been impressed with writers and speakers who can call on a quote that helps them drive home a point or to inspire.  The problem is I know that I have  lost more than I have kept.  I think I found a solution and I hope you enjoy it as I catalog some of my favorite quotes on all sorts of subject matter from over the years.  It should be fairly fluid and maybe someday I will find a whiz bang plug that will help me do drop downs, etc. but for now I hope you find something you like.

ANGER

“He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that rules his spirit than he that takes a city.” – Bible

ATTITUDE

“If your attitude is right, you can ask why” – on raising kids, Pastor Gini Smith

“They can because they think they can.” – Virgil (kids too!)

“Don’t mistake activity for achievement.” – John Wooden

BUSINESS

Never invest in a business you don’t understand. – Warren Buffet

COMMUNICATION

If you can’t explain it simply, then you don’t understand it well enough. – Albert Einstein

There ain’t no rules around here. We are trying to accomplish something. – Thomas Edison

CONNECTION/COMMUNITY

“Connection gives meaning to our lives. Connection is why we’re here.” – Brené Browen

CULTURE

“Culture eats strategy for breakfast. ” – bowl of corn flakes in Ford Motor co. boardroom

ENCOURAGEMENT

“You never know when a moment and a few sincere words can have an impact on a life.” – Zig Ziglar

“Every man I meet is my superior in some way. In that, I learn of him.” – Emerson

You can accomplish anything you want in life provided you don’t mind who gets the credit. – Harry Truman

“Our chief want is someone who will inspire us to be what we know we could be.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless.” – Mother Teresa

“Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.” – Mark Twain

“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 will not forget you.” – William Arthur Ward

“There are two ways of exerting one’s strength: one is pushing down, the other is pulling up.” – Booker T. Washington

“There are high spots in all of our lives and most of them have come about through encouragement from someone else.” – George M. Adams

“I have yet to find the man, however exalted his station, who did not do better work and put forth a greater effort under a spirit of approval then under a spirit of criticism.” – Charles Schwab

“The greatest good you can do for another is not just share your riches, but reveal to him his own.” – Benjamin Disraeli

“Treat a man as he appears to be and you make him worse. But treat a man as if he already were what he potentially could be, and you make him what he should be.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“An automobile goes nowhere efficiently unless it has a quick, hot spark to ignite things, to set the cogs of the machine in motion. So I try to make every player on my team feel he’s the spark keeping our machine in motion.” – Coach Knute Rockne

“How do you identify someone who needs encouragement? That person is breathing.” – Truett Cathy

“You have it easily in your power to increase the sum total of this world’s happiness now. How? By giving a few words of sincere appreciation to someone who is lonely or discouraged. Perhaps you will forget tomorrow the kind words you say today, but the recipient may cherish them over a lifetime.” – Dale Carnegie

Perhaps Duncan’s nature would have led him to be just as selfless on his own. Or maybe the early years of a player’s career are like the formative years of a child’s psyche. I read a study that showed that a tumultuous household can be seared into a young person’s mind to the point that it becomes the norm, and the brain will constantly seek a return to that state, disrupting healthy relationships if necessary to achieve the imbalance to which it’s accustomed.

I give you the gift of these four words: “I believe in you” – Blaise Pascal

I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do. – Leonardo da Vinci

Do what you can to give what you have to help those who want to help others. -Unknown

How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world. – Anne Frank

Wherever there is a human being there is an opportunity for kindness – Seneca

FAILURE

“No such things as failure, just feedback.”

“Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances.” – Thomas Jefferson

“Be firm in your outcome and flexible in how you get there.” – Grant Korgan (lost spine and extreme sports guy who spoke at 2017 Guild Leadership Summit)

“If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it.” – Lord Kelvin

FAITH

The man who is right is a majority. He who has God and consciousness on his side has a majority. – Frederick Douglass

FOOD

“If life gives you a lemon, make lemonade. However — if life gives you a pickle, you might as well give up, because pickle-ade is disgusting.” — Clifton J. Gray.

“Don’t confuse: Jell-O with whipped cream for dessert and J-Lo with whipped cream for dessert.”

“I don’t LIKE food, I LOVE it. If I don’t LOVE it, I don’t SWALLOW.” — Food critic Anton Ego in the movie Ratatouille.

“Give a man food, and he can eat for a day. Give a man a job, and he can only eat for 30 minutes on break.” — Lev L. Spiro

“I like pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.” — Winston Churchill.

“Ham and eggs: a day’s work for a hen; a lifetime commitment for a pig.”

“A converted cannibal is one who, on Friday, eats only fishermen.” — Emily Lotney

“Madam, there’s no such thing as a tough child — if you parboil them first for seven hours, they always come out tender.” — W. C. Fields

“If Will E. Coyote had enough money for all that Acme crap, why didn’t he just buy dinner ?”

“Butter vs. Margarine ? I trust cows over scientists.”

“Sacred cows make the best burgers.”

“Great restaurants are, of course, nothing but mouth-brothels. There is no point in going to them if one intends to keep one’s belt buckled.” — Frederic Raphael (1931- ), British author.

“If it has four legs and it’s not a table, eat it.” — Cantonese saying.

“I didn’t fight my way to the top of the food chain to be a vegetarian.”

“If vegetarians eat vegetables, what do humanitarians eat ?”

“Food is an important part of a balanced diet.”

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst, for they are sticking to their diets.”

“Once, during prohibition, I was forced to live for days on nothing but food and water.” – WC Fields

“In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is freedom, in water there is bacteria.” – Ben Franklin

Everybody’s got to believe in something. I believe I’ll have another beer.” – W. C. Fields

Only Irish coffee provides in a single glass all four essential food groups: alcohol, caffeine, sugar and fat.”. – Alex Levine

“Fingers were made before knives and forks. – Old adage

“Dining with one’s friends and beloved family is certainly one of life’s primal and most innocent delights, one that is both soul-satisfying and eternal. – Julia Child

“I had rather be shut up in a very modest cottage with my books, my family and a few old friends, dining on simple bacon, and letting the world roll on as it liked, than to occupy the most splendid post, which any human power can give.” -Thomas Jefferson

“’Bacon,’” a sourdough friend translated, when asked what he meant by saying he’d gorged himself with vast amounts of tiger. ‘That’s because it’s striped. Sounds nobler when called tiger.’” –Skills for Taming the Wilds by Bradford Angier

“Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dinner like a pauper.”-Adelle Davis

“I’d rather have a tiny bit of something really delicious, than great gobs of something I don’t like.” – Julia Child

“Avoid food products that carry health claims.” – Michael Pollan

“Cooking is like love. It should be entered into with abandon, or not at all.” – Harriet Van Horne

“Yellow as summer sunlight, soft as young thighs, smooth as a Baptist’s preachers rant, falsely innocent as a magicians’s handkerchief, mayonnaise will cloak a lettuce leaf, some shreds of cabbage, a few hunks of cold potato in the simplest splendor, restyling their dull character, making them lively and attractive again.” – Tom Robbins

“What does a chef do? He cooks. And cooking is a craft. Cooking is repetition. And one must learn the craft.” – Thomas Keller

“We can reclaim the family dinner, reviving and renewing it. Doing so will help us learn how to find and prepare real food quickly and simply, teach our children by example how to connect, build security, safety, and social skills, meal after meal, day after day, year after year.” – Greg Atkinson

“But while we all know that a recipe is not going to save the world, it will temporarily occupy the mind and the mouth of some individual whose mind and mouth sought occupation.” Mission Street Food

Fattoria in Italy “Nostro terra….E suo sapore – You can taste our dirt.”

Food is the rare moral arena in which the ethical choices is generally the one more likely to make you groan with pleasure.

You don’t need to cook fancy…just good food from fresh ingredients. – Julia Child

There is no love more sincere than the love of food. – George Bernard Shaw

I went to a restaurant that serves breakfast at any time so I ordered french toast during the Renaissance. – Steven Wright

We eat mindlessly.

If you are what you eat, I only want the good stuff.

One can get too comfortable with vegetables!

You look thin…is there a shortage of food or a surplus of snobbery?

If you don’t love others you can’t cook.

People who have no love to share eat poorly, and they don’t cook. If you love cooking, you will cook, at

whatever level. People who like to be around a table, who like to share—they’ll try to cook, even if

it’s only an egg. I would much prefer to eat an egg with friends than caviar with strangers. – Chef Philippe Legendre

You can’t taste the beauty and energy of the earth in a Twinkie.” – Astrid Alauda

“Cooking and eating can connect us to our past, to our families and friends, and to environmental issues. What’s more, cooking and eating with the attentive eye of someone dedicated to the craft connects us to the sacred present, where it all happens.” – Greg Atkinson

“Agriculture is our wisest pursuit, because it will in the end contribute most to real wealth, good morals, and happiness.” – Thomas Jefferson

“All great change in America begins at the dinner table.” – Ronald Reagan

The food is so good it makes me want to write bad checks

“We need writers who persuade us that cooking is fun and that there is a wonderful creative satisfaction in going home and making a good meal at the end of the day.” -Judith Jones

“A chef never mourns an empty plate.” – Kathleen Flinn, The Sharper the Knife, the Less you Cry

GOALS

We all have two choices: we can make a living or we can design a life. – Jim Rohn

If you don’t know where you are going, you may end up somewhere else – Yogi Berra

If you aim for two things, you will miss them both.

If you can’t do it on paper, you won’t be able to do it electronically.

Standing in the middle of the road is very dangerous; you get knocked down by traffic from both sides – Margaret Thatcher

What are you looking for in a player? – CONSISTENCY – Lou Holtz

Setting a goal is not the main thing. It is deciding how you will go about achieving it and staying that that plan. – Tom Landry

The most important key to achieving great success is to decide upon your goal and launch, get started, take action, MOVE. – Brian Tracy

I don’t care how much power, brilliance, or energy you have, if you don’t harness it and focus it on a specific target, and hold it there, you’re never going to accomplish as much as your ability warrants. – Zig Ziglar

A goal is a dream with a deadline. – Napoleon Hill

GOVERNMENT

A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority

always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by dictatorship. The average age

of the world’s greatest civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through this sequence: From bondage to spiritual faith; From spiritual faith to great courage; From courage to liberty; From liberty to abundance; From abundance to selfishness; From selfishness to apathy; From apathy to dependence; From dependence back to bondage. – Alexander Tyler

Remember what the fellow said: In Italy, for 30 years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder, bloodshed, but they produced Michaelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. And in Switzerland they had brotherly love and 500 years of democracy and peace—and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock. – Harry Lime (Orson Welles)

HARD WORK

“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks a lot like work.” – Thomas Edison

“I can tell who is skinny-dipping when the tide goes out.” – Warren Buffet

You cannot plough a field by turning it over in your mind!

“I’ve got a theory that if you give 100%, all the time, some how things will work out.” – Larry Bird

“Nobody ever drowned in his own sweat.” – Ann Landers

“It had long since come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things.” ― Leonardo da Vinci

“I am a believer in luck. The harder I work, the more of it I seem to have.” – C Cox

“The elevator to success is not running, you must climb the stairs.” – Zig Ziglar

“The heights by great men reached and kept, were not attained by sudden flight, but they, while their companions slept, were toiling upward in the night.” – Longfellow

“When you can’t create you can work.”

IDEAS

Everyone who’s ever taken a shower has an idea. It’s the person who gets out of the shower, dries off and does something about it that makes a difference. – Nolan Bushnell

I can’t understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I’m frightened of the old ones. – John Cage

IDLENESS

Story/Example – There are some species of shark that have to continually swim forward in order to get oxygen to breathe; they take it from the water that flows into their mouths and over their gills. Even when scientists held them stationary, and allowed a current to push the water into their mouths, the sharks breathed more efficiently when moving. In other words, it required less effort for them to breathe while moving, than while at rest. And when there’s less oxygen in the water available, rather than conserving energy to compensate, these sharks counter-intuitively open their mouths wider and move faster to keep from drowning.

“Even if you are on the right track, you will get run over if you just stay there.” – Will Rogers

“He has nothing to prevent him but too much idleness, which, I have observed fills up a man’s time much more completely and leaves him less his own master, than any sort of employment whatsoever.” –Edmund Burke

“Very many factors go to the building of sound morale…but one of the greatest is that men be fully employed at useful and interesting work. Idleness is a dangerous breeding ground.” –Winston Churchill

Opportunity by John James Ingalls

Master of human destinies am I

Fame, love and fortune on my footsteps wait.

Cities and fields I walk; I penetrate

Deserts and seas remote, and passing by

Hovel and mart and palace, soon or late

I knock unbidden once at every gate;

If sleeping, wake; if feasting, rise before

I turn away. It is the hour of fate.

And they who follow me reach every state

Mortals desire, and conquer every foe

Save death: But those who doubt or hesitate,

Condemned to failure, penury and woe,

Seek me in vain and uselessly implore—

I answer not, and I return no more.

INTEGRITY

“People never improve unless they look to some standard or example higher and better than themselves.” – Tyron Edwards

“Example is the school of mankind, and they will learn at no other.” -Edmund Burke

“Lives of great men all remind us we can make our lives sublime; and, departing, leave behind us, footprints on the sands of time.”- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

“Very few men are wise by their own counsel, or learned by their own teaching. For he that was only taught by himself had a fool for his master.” – Ben Johnson

“What I would like to give my daughter is freedom. And this is something that must be given by example, not by exhortation.” – Erica Jong

As industrialist Andrew Carnegie remarked, “As I grow older I pay less attention to what men say. I just watch what they do.”

A Chinese proverb says, “To know the road ahead, ask those coming back.”

Your reputation and integrity are everything. Follow through on what you say you’re going to do. Your credibility can only be built over time, and it is built from the history of your words and actions.”-  Maria Razumich-Zec

“If a man’s associates find him guilty of being phony, if they find that he lacks forthright integrity, he will fail. His teachings and actions must square with each other. The first great need, therefore, is integrity and high purpose.” -Dwight D. Eisenhower

“In looking for people to hire, you look for three qualities: integrity, intelligence, and energy. And if they don’t have the first, the other two will kill you.” – Warren Buffet

“Personal integrity is important, not because it gets us what we want, but because it helps us be what we want.”  – Michael Josephson

IRISH BLESSINGS/SAYINGS

“It was a woman who led me to drink…and I forgot to write her to thank her for it.” Irish saying

JOURNAL/WRITE

“Morning pages are, as author Julia Cameron puts it, “spiritual windshield wipers.” It’s the most cost-effective therapy I’ve ever found. To quote her further, from page viii: “Once we get those muddy, maddening, confusing thoughts nebulous worries,” from Tools of Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performers” by Timothy Ferriss

LEGACY

“You are not here merely to make a living. You are here to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, and with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world. You impoverish yourself if you forget this errand.” – Woodrow Wilson

“[What matters most] is not the honor that you take with you, but the heritage you leave behind.” – Branch Rickey

“The future belongs to those who give the next generation reason for hope.” – Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

“Carve your name on hearts, not tombstones. A legacy is etched into the minds of others and the stories they share about you.” – Shannon L. Alder

MENTAL CLUTTER

There are 4 primary causes of mental clutter. They are avoidance, procrastination, distraction, and indecision. If you choose to allow these issues to persist, you will experience stress, distraction, worry, and fatigue. – 7 Minute Life

PERSEVERANCE

Few things are impossible to diligence and skill. Great works are performed not by strength, but perseverance.” ~ Samuel Johnson

When mind is made up, you never give up!

“If you are going through hell, keep going.” ~ Winston Churchill

“No great thing is created suddenly.” – Epictetus

“Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.” Thomas Edison

“When life kicks you, let it kick you forward.” Kay Yow, Head womens bball coach, NC State

“It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points

out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have

done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the

arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives

valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there

is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great

enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy

cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high

achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails

while daring greatly, sot that his place shall never be with those

cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor

defeat.” – Theodore Roosevelt

“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 temptation to quit will be greatest just before you are about to succeed – Chinese Proverb

PURPOSE

He who has a why to live for can bear almost any “how.’ – Nietzsche

Potential – There is no man living who isn’t capable of doing more than he thinks he can do. – Henry Ford

Everyone has his own specific vocation or mission in life. Everyone must carry out a concrete assignment that demands fulfillment. Therein he cannot be replaced, nor can his life be repeated. Thus everyone’s task is as unique as his specific opportunity to implement it. – Viktor Frankl

When a man does not know what harbor is making for, no wind is the right wind. – Seneca

I am here for a purpose and that purpose is to grow into a mountain, not to shrink to a grain of sand. Henceforth I will apply all of my efforts to become the highest mountain of all and I will strain my potential until it cries for mercy. – Og Mandino

There is one quality which one must possess to win, and that is the definitiveness of purpose, the knowledge of what one wants, and a burning desire to possess it. – Napolean Hill

SERVICE/GIVING

When we clearly understand that there is no superior sex or superior race, we will have opened the door of communication and laid the foundation for building winning relationships with all people in this global world of ours. – Zig Ziglar

Don’t give to get. Give to inspire others to give. – Simon Sinek

Be the change you want to see in the world. – Ghandi

There is no better exercise for your heart than reaching down and helping to lift someone up. – Bernard Meltzer

Service – The purpose of human life is to serve, and to show compassion and the will to help others. – Albert Schweitzer

Service – All of us are born for a reason, but all of us don’t discover why. Success in life has nothing to do with what you gain in life or accomplish for yourself. It is what you do for others. – Danny Thomas

If you can’t feed a lot of people, then feed just one. – Mother Theresa

SUCCESS

Success is knowing your purpose in life, growing to reach your maximum potential, and sowing seeds that benefit others. – John Maxwell

I attribute my success to this: I never gave or took any excuse. – Florence Nightingale

The quality of a person’s life is in their commitment to excellence, regardless of their chosen field of endeavor. – Vince Lombardi

If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. – Albert Schweitzer

Excellence is a prevailing attitude. – Charles Schwab

Formula for success: rise early, work hard, strike oil. – J Paul Getty

Success – Wealth, notoriety, place and power are no measures of success whatsoever. The only true measure of success is the ratio between what we might have been and what we have become. – HG Wells

“People will do anything but the fundamentals.” – Brian Buffini

“We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we get.” – Winston Churchill

“Be Prosperous” – how Niccolo Machiavelli signed his letters

“You must be good at 1 of 2 things, sowing in the spring or begging in the fall.” Jim Rohn

“The principles don’t change, the tactics do.” Brian Buffini

Start/Success – Do what you can, with what you have, where you are. – Theodore Roosevelt

Past/Future – He who does not look ahead remains behind. – Spanish Proverb

Success – Successful people are simply willing to do what unsuccessful people are not.

Often people attempt to live their lives backwards; they try to have more things, or more money, in order to do more of what they want, so they will be happier. The way it actually works is the reverse. You must first be who you really are, then do what you need to do, in order to have what you want. – Margaret Young

THOUGHTS

Thoughts,” Bell said, “are like the precious moments that fly past; once gone they can never be caught again.” – Alexander Graham Bell

TIME MANAGEMENT/PRIORITIES

You have to decide what your highest priorities are and have the courage – pleasantly, smilingly, non-apologetically – to say “no” to other things. And the way you do that is by having a bigger “yes” burning inside. The enemy of the “best” is often the “good.” – Stephen Covey

Concentration is the key to economic results. No other principle of effectiveness is violated as constantly today as the basic principle of concentration…. Our motto seems to be, “Let’s do a little bit of everything.” –  Peter Drucker

I soon learned how to scent out that which was able to lead to fundamentals and to turn aside everything else, from the multitude of things that clutter up the mind and divert it from the essential. – Albert Einstein

Most of us lead busy, but undisciplined lives. We have ever expanding “to do” lists, trying to build momentum by doing, doing, and doing more. And it rarely works. Those who build the good-to-great companies, however, made as much use of “stop doing” lists as the “to do” lists. They displayed a remarkable amount of discipline to unplug all sorts of extraneous junk… they displayed remarkable courage to channel their resources into only one or a few arenas. –  Jim Collins, Good to Great

It’s important not to run on the fast track, but on YOUR track. Pretend you have only six months to live, and make three lists: the things you HAVE to do, WANT to do, and neither have to do nor want to do. Then, for the rest of your life, forget everything on the third list. – Robert Eliot

The difference between leaders and managers: Managers have as their goal to do things right. Leaders have as their goal to do the right thing. – Warren Buffett

Control your own time. Don’t let it be done for you. If you are working off the in-box that is fed to you, you are probably working on the priority of others. – Donald Rumsfeld

WINNING

Winning is a habit.

Winning is not a some time thing, it is an all time thing. You don’t win once in awhile, you don’t do things right once in awhile, you do them all the time. – Vince Lombardi