Selected self improvement quotes

1. Action is the parent of results; dormancy, the brooding mother of discontent.

2. Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.

3. I do not think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday.

4. I lack what the English call character, by which they mean the power to refrain.

5. Don't leave home without your sword - your intellect.

6. Every man and every woman is a star.

7. A man, as a general rule, owes very little to what he is born with - a man is what he makes of himself.

8. There is no royal road to learning; no short cut to the acquirement of any art.

9. If you can't learn to do it well, learn to enjoy doing it badly.

10. Try to be the best of what you are, even if what you are is no good.

11. Some books makes me want to go adventuring, others feel that they have saved me the trouble.

12. I'll give up my bad habits as soon as equally satisfying good habits become available.

13. My time is far too valuable for me to spend any of it trying to improve myself.

14. I've learned so much from my failures that I'm thinking of having some more.

15. You have to look at yourself objectively. Analyze yourself like an instrument. You have to be absolutely frank with yourself. Face your handicaps, don't try to hide them. Instead, develop something else.

16. Anything you're good at contributes to happiness.

17. What amazes me the most is to see that everyone is not amazed at his own weakness.

18. Psychologically, you have to have confidence in yourself and this confidence should be based on fact.

19. Character, not circumstances, makes the man.

20. I think I have learned that the best way to lift one's self up is to help someone else.

21. Faith is a state of mind that can be conditioned through self-discipline. Faith will accomplish.

22. Ever since I was a child I have had this instinctive urge for expansion and growth. To me, the function and duty of a quality human being is the sincere and honest development of one's potential.

23. At least half of my life's many mistakes can be safely put down to impetuosity: the other half derive from inertia.

24. To get what you want, STOP doing what isn't working.

25. Tomorrow is the day when idlers work, and fools reform.

26. To the rational being only the irrational is unendurable, but the rational is endurable.

27. Whatever you would make habitual, practice it; and if you would not make a thing habitual, do not practice it, but accustom yourself to something else.

28. Nature hath given men one tongue but two ears, that we may hear from others twice as much as we speak.

29. Exceed due measure, and the most delightful things become the least delightful.

30. When we argue for our limitations, we get to keep them.

31. Virtue consists, not in abstaining from vice, but in not desiring it.

32. Perhaps the only true dignity of man is his capacity to despise himself.

33. Oh courage...oh yes! If only one had that...Then life might be livable, in spite of everything.

34. Everything I touch seems destined to turn into something mean and farcical.

35. The great secret of power is never to will to do more than you can accomplish.

36. My best friend is the one who brings out the best in me.

37. As long as habit and routine dictate the pattern of living, new dimensions of the soul will not emerge.

38. Much learning does not teach understanding.

39. Good character is not formed in a week or a month. It is created little by little, day by day. Protracted and patient effort is needed to develop good character.

40. Our envy always lasts longer than the happiness of those we envy.

41. Honesty: 'Honestly appraise your defects, and diligently seek to minimize them. Self examination often only reveals that we cannot honestly examine ourselves. Be honest, and know yourself! But what good is knowing if you attempt to do nothing with the knowledge?'

42. Cette vie est un hopital ou chaque malade est possede du desir de changer de lit.

43. Well, we're our own prisons. We're each our own wardens and we do our own times. We get stuck in our own little trips and we kind a judge ourselves the way we do. You know, I can't judge uh, nobody else, best thing I can do is try to judge myself and live with that. See, what other people do is not really my affair, unless they approach me with it, and want me to do something about it, uh, then I'll uh take into consideration what has to be done. But other than that I just uh, try to do my number, and do my time.

44. Everything's different. You have to recognise the fact that I'm different. Time goes on, and you change. I'm coming into this as a different guy, that's probably the biggest thing.

45. Perhaps we should warn you that there is one thing you won't read, and that is a pat answer for the problems of life. We don't pretend to make this a spiritual or psychological patent-medicine chest where one can come and get a pill of wisdom, to be swallowed like an aspirin, to banish the headaches of our times.

46. He was himself and he had lost the speed He started with, and he was left behind.

47. But God hath introduced Man to be a spectator of Himself and of His works; and not a spectator only, but also an interpreter of them. Wherefore it is a shame for man to begin and to leave off where the brutes do. Rather he should begin there, and leave off where Nature leaves off in us: and that is at contemplation, and understanding, and a manner of life that is in harmony with herself. See then that ye die not without being spectators of these things. (13)

48. If you have assumed a character beyond your strength, you have both played a poor figure in that, and neglected one that is within your powers. (79)

49. If thou wouldst make progress, be content to seem foolish and void of understanding with respect to outward things. Care not to be thought to know anything. If any should make account of thee, distrust thyself. (158)

50. The power of changing oneself lies not in the mind, but in the body and the feelings. Unfortunately, however, our body and our feelings are so constituted that they don't care a jot about anything so long as they are happy. They live for the moment and their memory is short. The mind alone lives for tomorrow. Each has its own merits. The merit of the mind is that it looks ahead. But it is only the other two that can 'do.'

51. Washington wasn't born good. Only practice and habit made him so.

52. 'These hearts rust just as iron rusts; and indeed they are polished through the recitation of the Qur'an.'

53. 'Whenever the time of each prayer arrives, an Angel announces to the people: (O' People!) Stand up and extinguish, with prayers, the fire which you have set alight for yourselves.'

54. Les gens sans esprit ressemblent aux mauvaises herbes qui se plaisent dans les bons terrains, et ils aiment d'autant plus etre amuses qu'ils s'ennuient eux-memes.

55. La vie habituelle fait l'ame, et l'ame fait la physionomie.

56. Atqui si vitiis mediocribus ac mea paucis mendosa est natura, alioqui recta, velut si egregio inspersos reprehendas corpore naevos, si neque avaritiam neque sordes nec mala lustra obiciet vere quisquam mihi, purus et insons, ut me collaudem, si et vivo carus amicis... at hoc nunc laus illi debetur et a me gratia maior. nil me paeniteat sanum patris huius, eoque non, ut magna dolo factum negat esse suo pars, quod non ingenuos habeat clarosque parentis, sic me defendam.

57. Prentice: This appalling situation is the result of my lax moral code. It's clean living and Teach Yourself Woodwork for me from now on!

58. While every one well knows himself to be fallible, few think it necessary to take any precautions against their own fallibility, or admit the supposition that any opinion, of which they feel very certain, may be one of the examples of the error to which they acknowledge themselves to be liable. (p. 24)

59. Thinking of other people takes you away from constantly thinking of yourself.

60. The true free living human-being is the one that achieves his dream without depending on someone.

61. I'd put my money where my mouth is, but my mouth keeps moving.

62. I think I'm happier with that. $rubyometer += 0.3 or so. :-)

63. He who would go in for novel experiments must begin with himself.

64. 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.

65. Only when one sees one's own mistakes with a convex lens and does just the reverse in the case of others, that one is able to arrive at a just relative estimate of the two. A Scrupulous and conscientious observance of this rule is necessary for one who wants to be a satyagrahi.

66. All my friends say I should leave him because he's mean, angry, and abusive. I need to get some new friends.

67. The warmth of zeal is not perhaps the most dangerous rock that we have to avoid; but rather that languour which ease produces and a distrust of our own courage.

68. God cries to my heart: 'Save me!' God cries to men, to animals, to plants, to matter: 'Save me!' Listen to your heart and follow him. Shatter your body and awake: We are all one. Love man because you are he. Love animals and plants because you were they, and now they follow you like faithful co-workers and slaves. Love your body; only with it may you fight on this earth and turn matter into spirit. Love matter. God clings to it tooth and nail, and fights. Fight with him. Die every day. Be born every day. Deny everything you have every day. The superior virtue is not to be free but to fight for freedom. Do not condescend to ask: 'Shall we conquer? Shall we be conquered?' Fight on!

69. We can't become what we need to be by remaining what we are.

70. Keep me alive. Keep me alive long enough for me to conquer the animal within myself. Long enough for me to learn to partner myself with a woman who is better and stronger than me. Long enough for me to reconcile myself with my brothers. Long enough to be as good a man as my father, and as good as my mother, too.

71. Smart, but not smart-mouthed; obedient, but willing to take the initiative; courageous, but not foolish; confident, but not boastful.

72. Maybe I'm wrong again. Wrong again. I could be wrong again. I remember once in August 1993, I was wrong, and I could be wrong again. I remember one of my best friends turned enemy. So, I was wrong, and I could be wrong again.

73. The more you read and the more you teach yourself, the less you rely on something like drugs to take you to a better place.

74. Qui peut vivre infame est indigne du jour.

75. Qui se vainc une fois peut se vaincre toujours.

76. Did you deem yourself strong, because you were able to twist the heads off civilized folk, poor weaklings with muscles like rotten string? Hell! Break the neck of a wild Cimmerian bull before you call yourself strong. I did that, before I was a full-grown man...!

77. The school of Islam is the school of purification and refinement.

78. Know that faith is one of the spiritual excellences that very few are aware of its light essence. Even the faithful are not aware of the radiance of their faith and the blessings it bears for them at the threshold of God as long as they are bound to this world and abide in the darkness of Nature.

79. Patience and forebearance ease the burden of misfortunes on man, facilitate the difficulties and strengthen the will and resolution.

80. Know that the wicked quality of self-conceit emerges from self-love.

81. No fault is greater than not understanding one's own fault and ignoring it and though one is a collection of faults, himself yet be concerned with the faults of others.

82. Pursue Virtue virtuously.

83. The real reason to run a race is not to win the race but to test the limits of the human heart.

84. Atque etiam recordatus quondam super cenam, quod nihil cuiquam toto die praestitisset, memorabilem illam meritoque laudatam vocem edidit: 'Amici, diem perdidi.'

85. Why you're not crippled, you just have a little defect - hardly noticeable, even! When people have some slight disadvantage like that, they cultivate other things to make up for it - develop charm - and vivacity - and - charm!

86. To study Buddhism and then use it as a weapon in order to criticize others' theories or ideologies is wrong. The very purpose of religion is to control yourself, not to criticize others. Rather, we must criticize ourselves. How much am I doing about my anger? About my attachment, about my hatred, about my pride, my jealousy? These are the things which we must check in daily life with the knowledge of the Buddhist teachings.

87. The real enemy is not outside, but inside. ... External enemies are not permanent; if you respect him, the enemy will become your friend. But there is one enemy who is always an enemy, whom you should never compromise, that is the enemy inside your heart. You cannot change all these bad thoughts into your friend, but you have to confront and control them.

88. It is man's highest interest not to violate, or attempt to violate, the rules which Infinite Wisdom has laid down. The means by which men are to attain great elevation may be classed in three divisions - physical, mental, and moral. Whatever relates to health, belongs to the first; whatever relates to the improvement of the mind, belongs to the second. The formation of good manners and virtuous habits constitutes the third.

89. Those must have all been important to me once. What I am now grew from that. A former self is a fool, an insufferable ass, but he's still human, you'd no more turn him out than you'd turn out any kind of cripple, would you?

90. Each will have his personal Rocket.

91. I can't save you from yourself, you gotta want it.

92. 'You want me to change? I can change. I know I can be a better father and a better husband.' (Towards his family)

93. Perhaps, The man-hero is not the exceptional monster, But he that of repetition is most master.

94. I have never heard you complain: 'You promote me to be the future master of myself and the world, but you don't tell me how one is to be the master of oneself, and you don't tell me the mistakes in my thinking and my actions.'

95. 'What right do you have to tell me things?' I can see this question in your apprehensive look. I hear this question from your impertinent mouth, Little Man. You are afraid to look at yourself, you are afraid of criticism, Little Man, just as you are afraid of the power they promise you. You would not know how to use this power. You dare not think that you ever might experience your self differently: free instead of cowed; open instead of tactical; loving openly instead of like a thief in the night. You despise yourself Little Man. You say: 'Who am I to have an opinion of my own, to determine my own life and to declare the world to be mine?' You are right: Who are you to make a claim to your life?

96. Low ambition and the thirst of praise.

97. Character is the entity, the individuality of the person, shining from every window of the soul, either as a beam of purity, or as a clouded ray that betrays the impurity within. The contest between light and darkness, right and wrong, goes on; day by day, hour by hour, moment by moment, our characters are being formed, and this is the all-important question which comes to us in accents ever growing fainter as we journey from the cradle to the grave, 'Shall those characters be good or bad?'

98. The end of life evokes the errors of it, and a fellow wishes he had known better.

99. It is not the smallest use to try to make people good, unless you try at the same time - and they feel that you are trying - to make them happy. And you rarely can make another happy, unless you are happy yourself. ~ Ch. 10

100. We want honestly to earn the resurrection of our people through our industry, our perseverance, our will. We ask not of the Almighty 'Lord, make us free'!-we want to be active, to work, to agree together as brothers, to strive in rivalry with one another to bring about the hour when we can come before Him and when we may ask of Him: 'Lord, Thou seest that we have transformed ourselves, the German people is not longer the people of dishonour, of shame, of war within itself, of faintheartedness and little faith: no, Lord, the German people has become strong again in spirit, strong in will, strong in endurance, strong to bear all sacrifices.' 'Lord, we will not let Thee go: bless now our fight for our freedom; the fight we wage for our German people and Fatherland.' ** speech, May Day 1933