Quotes That Matter

Share this via:

Quotes matter.

We post them on our refrigerators using assorted sized magnets, we carry them on thinly laminated cards in our wallets, we tattoo them on our bodies in forever ink. They are used as mantras during times of uncertainty and are passed down labeled as teachable moments to the next generation.

Quotes are like true north on a compass - they matter.

Here are just a few of the hundreds that I’ve jotted down in journals over the years.

• Understand who you are, get comfortable with it and get on down the road. You are enough. Period. Full stop. Now go take the path less traveled.
• All humans face the same issues, just in varying magnitudes and in different sequencing. We are all far more alike than we are different.
• You have three choices when bad things happen to you: you can let them destroy you, you can let them define you or you can let them develop you. Development is the only choice that moves you forward.
• Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted. (Einstein) There are tangibles and intangibles in life. The scoreboard is far more complicated than a simple tally of wins and losses.
• Don’t speak ill of your predecessors or successors. You didn’t walk in their shoes. (Donald Rumsfeld) Maybe it’s just a good idea not to speak ill of others as a general guiding principle.
• People don’t change until the pain of not changing is greater than the pain of changing. Or said differently, we don’t change until we’ve hurt enough or learned enough.
• Teaching is merely showing that something is possible. Learning is making something possible for yourself. (Paulo Coelho) Go and sit at the feet of the greatest teachers. And then tell me what you have learned.
• You measure yourself by the people who measure themselves by you. In a world full of constant comparisons, it seems as though we’re all just trying to measure up. In reality, where we place our yardstick matters most of all.
• Judgment is the cause of my distress, not the situation itself. There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. By replacing judgment with curiosity, my thinking changes. And that changes everything.
• Even when no one else knows, you know. And you have to answer for that. All humans came equipped with an inner voice for a reason. Learn to listen.
• Do the work. Come what may. In life, there are no shortcuts.
• Everything changed the day I decided that you are my lesson, not my enemy. Lose the angst; keep the lesson.
• You’re going to have to live with whatever you say or do next for the rest of your life. What you choose to say or do is crucial, so think very carefully about who you want to be when you look back on this story. Each life moment is part of a larger story – and just about the only thing we are in charge of is who we are in our stories.
• Light yourself on fire with passion and people will come for miles to watch you burn. The most powerful weapon on earth is the human soul on fire.
• You never cross the same river twice. It’s not the same river, and it’s not the same you. With each passing day, every step forward, each decision made - you’re becoming a different version of yourself.
• Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there. (Rumi) The gray areas will always present the hardest conversations to reconcile. And yet within the shades of gray, we seem to find perspectives we can all agree on.
• It doesn’t matter what others do. It matters what I do. (Stacey Mason) I am responsible for my actions. And I am equally responsible for my inactions.
• It’s hard growing up fitting in – it’s even harder standing out. Perhaps there will always be the constant internal struggle for both popularity and singularity.

Ancora Imparo…. (Still, I am learning)