99 Personal growth Quotes

Sometimes you don't know if you're Caesar about to cross the Rubicon or Captain Queeg cutting your own tow line.

I would permit no man, no matter what his colour might be, to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him.

Know the difference between a catastrophe and an inconvenience. - To realize that it's just an inconvenience, that it is not a catastrophe, but just an unpleasantness, is part of coming into your own, part of waking up.

You accept certain unlovely things about yourself and manage to live with them. The atonement for such an acceptance is that you make allowances for others - that you cleanse yourself of the sin of self-righteousness.

The only real security that a man can have in this world is a reserve of knowledge, experience and ability.

If you have the choice between humble and cocky, go with cocky. There's always time to be humble later, once you've been proven horrendously, irrevocably wrong.

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.

I am a woman in process. I'm just trying like everybody else. I try to take every conflict, every experience, and learn from it. Life is never dull.

Embrace every challenge you have, every person you meet, every place you visit, every task you succeed at, and especially those at which you fail. You will learn from them all. You'll learn about the world at large and about other people but most important, you'll learn about yourself.

Do not let your bachelor ways crystallize so that you can't soften them when you come to have a wife and a family of your own.

I wish to preach, not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life.

What has changed is that my life then was less difficult and my future seemingly less gloomy, but as far as my inner self, my way of looking at things and of thinking is concerned, that has not changed. But if there has indeed been a change, then it is that I think, believe and love more seriously now what I thought, believed and loved even then.

Difficulty is a severe instructor, set over us by the supreme ordinance of a parental Guardian and Legislator, who knows us better than we know ourselves, as he loves us better too... He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves, and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper.

It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves.

On the abstract level, I have turned the belief in my own fallibility into the cornerstone of an elaborate philosophy. On a personal level, I am a very critical person who looks for defects in myself as well as in others. But, being so critical, I am also quite forgiving. I couldn't recognize my mistakes if I couldn't forgive myself. To others, being wrong is a source of shame; to me, recognizing my mistakes is a source of pride. Once we realize that imperfect understanding is the human condition, there is no shame in being wrong, only in failing to correct our mistakes.

Go west, young man, and grow up with the country.

And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.

Perfect love is rare indeed - for to be a lover will require that you continually have the subtlety of the very wise, the flexibility of the child, the sensitivity of the artist, the understanding of the philosopher, the acceptance of the saint, the tolerance of the scholar and the fortitude of the certain.

I must say that acting was good training for the political life that lay ahead of us.

I once heard a tale of a man who split himself in two. The one part never changed at all; the other grew and grew. The changeless part was always true, the growing part was always new, and I wondered, when the tale was through, which part was me, and which was you.

'I constantly try to reinvent my sensibilities and my ideas. I enjoy some of the satisfaction that I get when I feel good about what I've done. But the process is quite lonely and quite painful.'

I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed. Looked at from this standpoint, I almost reached the conclusion that often the Negro boy's birth and connection with an unpopular race is an advantage, so far as real life is concerned. With few exceptions, the Negro youth must work harder and must perform his tasks even better than a white youth in order to secure recognition. But out of the hard and unusual struggle through which he is compelled to pass, he gets a strength, a confidence, that one misses whose pathway is comparatively smooth by reason of birth and race.

There is only one way to read, which is to browse in libraries and bookshops, picking up books that attract you, reading only those, dropping them when they bore you, skipping the parts that drag - and never, never reading anything because you feel you ought, or because it is part of a trend or a movement. Remember that the book which bores you when you are twenty or thirty will open doors for you when you are forty or fifty - and vice versa. Don't read a book out of its right time for you.

If none of us ever read a book that was 'dangerous,' had a friend who was 'different,' or joined an organization that advocated 'change,' we would all be just the kind of people Joe McCarthy wants.

Long ago, I made up my mind that when things were said involving only me, I would pay no attention to them, except when valid criticism was carried by which I could profit. (14 January 1942)

There is no meaning to life except the meaning man gives to his life by the unfolding of his powers.

A dynamic struggle goes on within a person between what he or she consciously thinks on the one hand and, on the other, some insight, some perspective that is struggling to be born. The insight is then born with anxiety, guilt, and the joy and gratification that is inseparable from the actualizing of a new idea or vision.

To me, literature is a calling, even a kind of salvation. It connects me with an enterprise that is over 2,000 years old. What do we have from the past? Art and thought. That's what lasts. That's what continues to feed people and give them an idea of something better. A better state of one's feelings or simply the idea of a silence in one's self that allows one to think or to feel. Which to me is the same.

When other little girls wanted to be ballet dancers, I sort of wanted to be a vampire.

Character is destiny.

We need to be the change we wish to see in the world.

I always felt I was nobody and the only way for me to be somebody was to be... well, somebody else.

We are all born with God-given, unique traits and skills. But, as with all possibilities they will remain unrealized unless they are developed, nurtured, and put into practice. You may have the 'capacity' to love, but if left undeveloped, you will never gain the 'ability.'

It is not my purpose to attempt a real autobiography. I simply want to tell the story of my experiments with truth...as my life consists of nothing but those experiments.

The end of satyagraha campaign can be described as worthy only when it leaves the satyagrahis stronger and more spirited then they are in the beginning.

A divorce is like an amputation; you survive, but there's less of you.

I prize thy gentle heart, Free from ambition, falsehood, or art, And thy good mind, Daily refined, By pure desire To fan the heaven-seeking fire.

Make up your mind that happiness depends on being free, and freedom depends on being courageous.

The show is much more emotional now. It's a journey, but it is still about clothes, too. It's been fascinating to see how looking good and having faith in your appearance makes you into a sexier person, which makes you attractive to your partner again. We come in as complete strangers and get to know them all extremely well. It was a privilege for Trinny and I to have these people feel they could open up to us. It was very humbling, too.

In my case I slob around in old clothes in the country. But I have the luxury of knowing I can pull myself out of that. So I don't feel bad about looking like shit.

Susannah has become less of a Sloane Ranger and more into real life. She's also more career-minded.

Once a year, go someplace you've never been before.

We risk impoverishing ourselves more than we know if we sideline the personal dimension of life.

I could have been a serious athlete, only to have my promise cut short when I discovered Woodbines and women. Thankfully I have long since given up the former, and the latter have long since given up on me-except, of course, for the lovely Lady Stratford, who for reasons beyond my comprehension still tolerates my presence.

Come as you are, as you were As I want you to be As a Trend, as a friend, as a known enemy Take your time, hurry up The choice is yours, don't be late.

Be forgiving and big hearted

You'd think, from the way you talk, that people were responsible for their own behavior And they're not? Haven't you ever seen a 3 year old when he makes a foolish blunder? He looks at whatever child or adult is nearby and screams at him 'look at what you made me do!' that's the moral universe that [they] always lived in

Solitude is greater than I anticipated. My sense of values is changing, and many things which before were in solution in my mind now seem to be crystallizing. I am better able to tell what in the world is wheat for me and what is chaff. In fact, my definition of success itself is changing. ~ Ch. 6

I used to worship the mighty genius of Michael Angelo - that man who was great in poetry, painting, sculpture, architecture - great in every thing he undertook. But I do not want Michael Angelo for breakfast - for luncheon - for dinner - for tea - for supper - for between meals. I like a change, occasionally.

A boor cannot be sin-fearing, an ignoramus cannot be pious, a bashful one cannot learn, a short-tempered person cannot teach, nor does anyone who does much business grow wise.

A man may be born, but in order to be born he must first die, and in order to die he must first awake.

It is the enemy who can truly teach us to practice the virtues of compassion and tolerance.

I believe we must live with courage and will. I must do so because, regardless of any difficulties I face, when the time comes for me to lose my life, I would at least have done my best.

Personality is reduced and deformed with depleted thoughts and stagnant mind.

Lerne Widerspruch ertragen. Sei nicht kindisch eingenommen von deinen Meinungen.

Vor einem grauen Haupte sollst du aufstehen!

It has been a severe lesson for Andy, but I do not think he will do it again.

Had it not been for you, I should have remained what I was when we first met, a prejudiced, narrow-minded being, with contracted sympathies and false knowledge, wasting my life on obsolete trifles, and utterly insensible to the privilege of living in this wondrous age of change and progress.

I used to drink, I did. I had to quit. Man, I was an embarrassing drunk. I'd get pulled over by the cops, I'd be so drunk I'd be out dancing in their lights thinking I'd made it to the next club.

While there are manners and compliments we do not meet, we do not teach one another the lessons of honesty and sincerity that the brutes do, or of steadiness and solidity that the rocks do. The fault is commonly mutual, however; for we do not habitually demand any more of each other.

The effect, if not the prime office, of criticism is to make our absorption and our enjoyment of the things that feed the mind as aware of itself as possible, since that awareness quickens the mental demand, which thus in turn wanders further and further for pasture. This action on the part of the mind practically amounts to a reaching out for the reasons of its interest, as only by its ascertaining them can the interest grow more various. This is the very education of our imaginative life.

A human being is not attaining his full heights until he is educated.

Everybody wants to be somebody; nobody wants to grow.

One has only to grow older to become more tolerant. I see no fault that I might not have committed myself.

Growing old is unavoidable, but never growing up is possible. I believe you can retain certain things from your childhood if you protect them - certain traits, certain places where you don't let the world go. (2004)

Oh man, I wasted so much time. I had great experiences, and a great education from all of it, but what a dumb-ass. I was just confused, and I didn't know what it was all about or what the point of anything was. I was just kind of pickling myself over a period of years. Self-medicating, trying to numb myself, and just being a self-centered prick, essentially. (2003)

When I met Vanessa, I was still drifting. But being with her has just blown me away and made me a better man. Ten years ago I never would have believed in the kind of life I have now as a father, although I still wonder if it's OK to be this happy. (2004)

No man can succeed in a line of endeavor which he does not like.

Men may be very learned, and yet very miserable; it is easy to be a deep geometrician, or a sublime astronomer, but very difficult to be a good man. I esteem, therefore, the traveller who instructs the heart, but despise him who only indulges the imagination. A man who leaves home to mend himself and others, is a philosopher; but he who goes from country to country, guided by the blind impulse of curiosity, is only a vagabond.

He was the first person that came into my life and gave me hope.

I have never spent a day in my adult life where I didn't learn something, and if there is a born-again quality to me, that's it.

Perhaps one has to be very old before one learns to be amused rather than shocked.

It takes all sorts of in and outdoor schooling To get adapted to my kind of fooling.

There ys no solas undyr hevene Of al that a man may nevene That shuld a man so moche glew As a gode womman that loveth trew.

Hell is not punishment. It's training.

So the secret is just to say 'Yes!' and jump off from here. Then there is no problem. It means to be yourself, always yourself, without sticking to an old self.

'The chopper has changed my life as conclusively as it did Anne Boleyn's.'

To love oneself is the beginning of a life-long romance.