Conscience, Defeat, Trust

Reason often makes mistakes, but conscience never does.
~ Josh Billings

Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat.
~ F. Scott Fitzgerald

It is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be
sometimes cheated than not to trust.
~ Samuel Johnson

Trifles, Excuses, Principles

At times the whole world seems to be in conspiracy to importune you
with emphatic trifles.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ninety-nine percent of the failures come from people who have the
habit of making excuses.
~ Dr. George Washington Carver

A general dissolution of principles and manners will more surely
overthrow the liberties of America than the whole force of the common
enemy.
~ Samuel Adams

Adventure, Democracy, Life

To live... to live would be an awfully big adventure.
~ Peter Pan

The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who
are willing to work and give to those who would not.
~ Thomas Jefferson

Be glad of life because it gives you a chance to love and to work and
to play and to look up at stars.
~ Henry Vandyke, poet, clergyman, educator

Play, Adventures, Change

Play is the purest, the most spiritual, product of man at this stage,
and it is at once the prefiguration and imitation of the total human
life, - of the inner, secret, natural life in man and in all things.
It produces, therefore, joy, freedom, satisfaction, repose within and
without, peace with the world. The springs of all good rest within it
and go out from it.
~ Freidrich Froebel (Father of modern kindergarten)

The last step of any journey may be the first step of an even greater
adventure.
~ Mrs.Whatsit, in A Wrinkle in Time

The person the world cannot change is the person who will change the world
~ Unknown

Planning, Civilization, Strength

Good plans shape good decisions. That's why good planning helps to
make elusive dreams come true.
~ Lester R. Bittel The Nine Master Keys of Management

A civilization is built on what is required of men, not on that which
is provided for them.
~ Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

An easy way to gather a wimpy army is to summon all the soldiers who
are boldly determined not to sound like fundamentalists.
~ John Piper

Leadership, Relationships, Devotion

People ask the difference between a leader and a boss. . . . The
leader works in the open, and the boss is covert. The leader leads,
and the boss drives.
~ Theodore Roosevelt

In organizations, real power and energy is generated through
relationships. The patterns of relationships and the capacities to
form them are more important than tasks, functions, roles, and
positions.
~ Margaret Wheatly

The world has yet to see what one man or woman fully devoted to God
can accomplish.
~ Henry Varley, as spoken to Dwight L. Moody

Sound body and mind, History

The sound body is the product of a sound mind.
~ George Bernard Shaw

I used to think that the brain was the most wonderful organ in my
body. Then I realized who was telling me this.
~ Emo Phillips

History is the science of things which are not repeated.
~ Paul Valery

Topless, Light the darkness, Play

There is no top. There are always further heights to reach.
~ Jascha Heifetz

I have but one candle of life to burn, and I would rather burn it out in a land filled with darkness than in a land flooded with light.
~ John Keith Falconer

It's not so much what children learn through play, but what they won't learn if we don't give them the chance to play. Many functional skills like literacy and arithmetic can be learned either through play or through instruction-the issue is the amount of stress on the child. However, many coping skills like compassion, self-regulation, self-confidence, the habit of active engagement, and the motivation to learn and be literate cannot be instructed. They can only be learned through self-directed experience (i.e. play).
~ Susan J. Oliver, Playing for Keeps

Beginners, Care, Condensed words

In a beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in an expert's mind there are few.
~ Shunryu Suzuki

The main thing is to care. Care very hard, even if it is only a game you are playing.
~ Billie Jean King

It is with words as with sunbeams. The more they are condensed, the deeper they burn.
~ Robert Southey

Hard, Crossing Bridges, Impossible

Life is hard. It’s even harder if you’re stupid.
~ Anonymous

When you build bridges you can keep crossing them.
~ Rick Pitino, American basketball coach

Some of the world's greatest feats were accomplished by people not smart enough to know they were impossible.
~ Doug Larson
(English middle-distance runner who won gold medals at the 1924 Olympic Games in Paris, 1902-1981)

Retirement, Truth, Courage

One's age should be tranquil, as childhood should be playful. Hard work at either extremity of life seems out of place. At midday the sun may burn, and men labor under it; but the morning and evening should be alike calm and cheerful.
~ Thomas Arnold, educator

Truth will always be truth, regardless of lack of understanding, disbelief or ignorance.
~ W. Clement Stone

Courage is being scared to death, but saddling up anyway.
~ John Wayne

Failure, Leadership, Anxiety

Failure is not falling down but refusing to get up.
~ Chinese Proverb

All of the great leaders have had one characteristic in common: it was the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time. This, and not much else, is the essence of
leadership.
~ John Kenneth Galbraith

Leadership is solving problems. The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help or concluded you do not care.
Either case is a failure of leadership.
~Colin Powell

Life, Leadership, Identity

Life is not an exact science, it is an art.
~ Samuel Butler, the younger

I used to think that running an organization was equivalent to conducting a symphony orchestra. But I don't think that's quite it; it's more like jazz. There is more improvisation.
~ Warren Bennis

You are not what you own.
~ Fugazi, American rock band

Daring, Play, Stand

All serious daring starts from within.
~ Eudora Welty

For the main characteristic of play - whether of child or adult - is not its content but its mode. Play is an approach to action, not a form of activity.
~ Jerome Bruner, psychologist, professor

A man who can bow before God can stand before giants.
~ Unknown

Play, Probability, Free Market

Play is work that you enjoy doing for nothing.
~ Evan Esar, humorist

A pinch of probability is worth a pound of perhaps.
~ James Thurber

If you destroy a free market, you create a black market.
~ Sir Winston Churchill

Fresh start, Security, Anger

You may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing that we call 'failure' is not the falling down, but the staying down.
~ Mary Pickford

There is no safety in hiding.
~ Ted Kennedy

Whatever is begun in anger ends in shame.
~ Benjamin Franklin

Dictators, Determination, Toughness

Dictators ride to and fro upon tigers which they dare not dismount. And the tigers are getting hungry.
~ Winston Churchill

If you really want to do something, you will find a way. If you don't, you will find an excuse.
~ Anonymous

Tough times never last, but tough people do.
~ Robert H. Schuller

Education, Someone else, Leader

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
~ Aristotle

Wanting to be someone else is a waste of the person you are.
~ Kurt Cobain

Ah well! I am their leader, I really ought to follow them!
~ Alexandre Auguste Ledru-Rollin

Well said, Risk, Ideas

Well done is better than well said.
~ Benjamin Franklin

Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experience that reveals the human spirit.
~ e e cummings

When ideas fail, words come in very handy.
~ Goethe

Struggles, Minds, Creativity

D'you call life a bad job? Never! We've had our ups and downs, we've had our struggles, we've always been poor, but it's been worth it, ay, worth it a hundred times I say when I look round at my children.
~ W. Somerset Maugham

Great mind discuss ideas; Average minds, events; Small minds, people.
~ Eleanor Roosevelt

Don't think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity. It's self-conscious, and anything self-conscious is lousy. You can't try to do things. You simply must do things.
~ Ray Bradbury