“This above all: to thine ownself be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.”
“This above all: to thine ownself be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.”
“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face
my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when my fear is gone I will turn and face fear's
path, and only I will remain.”
“No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.”
“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage.”
“The only thing that does not change is that everything changes.”
“Mind like parachute — only function when open.”
“If it falls your lot to be a street sweeper, sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures, sweep streets like Beethoven composed music, sweep streets like Leontyne Price sings before the Metropolitan Opera. Sweep streets like Shakespeare wrote poetry. Sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will have to pause and say: Here lived a great street sweeper who swept his job well.”
“Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could only do a little.”
“Ask yourself this daily question: ‘How would the person I'd like to be, do the things I'm about to do?'”
“We have not inherited the earth from our ancestors, but borrowed it from our children.”
“What you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.”
“When you are inspired by some great purpose, some extraordinary project, all your thoughts break their bounds: Your mind transcends limitations, your consciousness expands in every direction, and you find yourself in a new, great, and wonderful world. Dormant forces, faculties, and talents become alive, and you discover yourself to be a greater person by far than you ever dreamed yourself to be.”
“No person who is enthusiastic about his work has anything to fear from life. All the opportunities in the world are waiting to be grasped by people who are in love with what they're doing.”
“PhD in Leadership, Short Course: Make a careful list of all things done to you that you abhorred. Don't do them to others, ever. Make another list of things done for you that you loved. Do them for others, always.”
“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 doesn't serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are 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 consciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
“I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies; for the hardest victory is over self.”
“They came first for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. And then they came for me and by that time no one was left to speak up.”
“Advice is like falling snow; the softer it falls, the longer it dwells upon, and the deeper it sinks into the mind.”
“If one is to love oneself, one must behave in ways that one can admire.”
“For want of a nail, the shoe was lost,
For want of a shoe, the horse was lost.
For want of a horse, the rider
was lost,
For want of the rider, the message was lost.
For want of the message, the battle was lost.
For
want of the battle, the war was lost,
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.”
“The man who follows the crowd will usually get no further than the crowd. The man who walks alone is likely to find himself in places no one has ever been.”
“In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”
“Start doing things you think should be done, and start being what you think society should become. Do you believe in free speech? Then speak freely. Do you love the truth? Then tell it. Do you believe in an open society? Then act in the open. Do you believe in a decent and humane society? Then behave decently and humanely.”
“If we could, at this time, shrink the earth's population to a village of precisely 100 people, with all the existing human ratios staying the same it would look like this:”
“The truth is, that those who have never entered upon scientific pursuits know not a tithe of the poetry by which they are surrounded.”