Mindset quotes

Expect the best. Prepare for the worst. Capitalize on what comes.

Failure is an event, not a person. Yesterday ended last night.

Others can stop you temporarily. You are the only one who can do it permanently.

The world's most deadly disease is 'hardening of the attitudes.'

All personal breakthroughs begin with a change in beliefs.

Beliefs have the power to create and the power to destroy.

Don't try to be perfect; just be an excellent example of being human.

Don't wish it were easier, wish you were better.

Every adversity has the seed of an equivalent or greater benefit.

Remember, no more effort is required to aim high in life, to demand abundance and prosperity, than is required to accept misery and poverty.

You have absolute control over but one thing, and that is your thoughts.

Mind control is the result of self-discipline and habit. You either control your mind or it controls you.

Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve.

Remember, today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday.

If I knew what you think, I would know what you are. Our thoughts make us what we are.

Live out of your imagination, not your history.

You are the architect of your own destiny; you are the master of your own fate; you are behind the steering wheel of your life.

There are no limitations to what you can do, have, or be. Except the limitations you place on yourself by your own thinking.

Someone's opinion of you does not have to become your reality.

We become what we think about.

Whatever we plant in our subconscious mind and nourish with repetition and emotion will one day become a reality.

Believe that problems do have answers. Believe that they can be overcome. Believe that they can be handled. And finally, believe that you can solve them.

People become really quite remarkable when they start thinking that they can do things. When they believe in themselves they have the first secret of success.

When obstacles or difficulties arise, the positive thinker takes them as creative opportunities.

Optimism is a philosophy based on the belief that basically life is good, that, in the long run, the good in life overbalances the evil.

Empty pockets never held anyone back... it's only empty heads and empty hearts that do it.

Never compare yourself or your achievements with others, but make your comparisons only with yourself.

Tell yourself every morning as you go to work that you love your job. Think of it as interesting, even fascinating.

Change your thoughts and you can change the world.

In a world of individuals, comparison is a senseless activity.

You will never win if you have to prove that you are the winner.

You'll see it when you believe it.

When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.

Expect the best, plan for the worst, and prepare to be surprised.

Take 100% responsibility for your life.

Event + Response = Outcome.

Successful people maintain a positive focus in life no matter what is going on around them.

Faith and fear both demand you believe in something you cannot see. You choose!

Your excuses are seducers, your fears are liars and your doubts are thieves.

Healthy striving is about striving for internal goals, and wanting to be our best selves. Perfectionism is not motivated internally. Perfectionism is about what people will think.

Ego is the enemy of what you want and of what you have.

Within every obstacle is an opportunity to improve our condition.

You alone are responsible for what you do, don't do, or how you respond to what's done to you.

Awareness is the greatest agent for change.

The past cannot survive in your presence. It can only survive in your absence.

If there is no joy, ease, or lightness in what you are doing, it does not necessarily mean that you need to change what you are doing. It may be sufficient to change the how.

The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation but your thoughts about it.

You have been criticizing yourself for years and it hasn't worked. Try approving of yourself and see what happens.

The point of power is always in the present moment.

Every thought we think is creating our future.

Everything is figureoutable.

Where you are is a result of who you were, but where you go depends entirely on who you choose to be from this moment on.

Determine that the thing can and shall be done, and then we shall find the way.

The way for a young man to rise, is to improve himself every way he can, never suspecting that any body wishes to hinder him.

I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.

But though an old man, I am but a young gardener.

Keep your eyes on the stars, but remember to keep your feet on the ground.

It is true of the Nation, as of the individual, that the greatest doer must also be a great dreamer.

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds.

You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face.

Life was meant to be lived, and curiosity must be kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life.

We are not here to curse the darkness, but to light the candle that can guide us through that darkness to a safe and sane future.

I don't believe in anti-anything. A man has to have a program; you have to be for something, otherwise you will never get anywhere.

We have every right to dream heroic dreams. Those who say that we're in a time when there are not heroes, they just don't know where to look.

Hope is that thing inside us that insists, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us if we have the courage to reach for it and to work for it and to fight for it.

I'm asking you to believe. Not in my ability to bring about change, but in yours.

Our destiny is not written for us, but by us.

When they go low, we go high.

Do not ever let anyone make you feel like you don't matter, or like you don't have a place in our American story, because you do.

For myself I am an optimist, it does not seem to be much use being anything else.

I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.

I am fundamentally an optimist... Part of being optimistic is keeping one's head pointed toward the sun, one's feet moving forward.

The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.

If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change.

Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.

You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.

I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false, and incur my own abhorrence.

I have learned over the years that when one's mind is made up, this diminishes fear; knowing what must be done does away with fear.

Do not get lost in a sea of despair. Be hopeful, be optimistic. Our struggle is not the struggle of a day, a week, a month, or a year, it is the struggle of a lifetime.

Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it.

Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement; nothing can be done without hope.

One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar.

Human happiness and human satisfaction must ultimately come from within oneself.

There is always the possibility of change. If it happened in South Africa, why can't it happen anywhere?

I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.

The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existence.

I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious.

Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character.

Truth is ever to be found in simplicity, and not in the multiplicity and confusion of things.

To myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore... whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.

Be less curious about people and more curious about ideas.

Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that? We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for something, and that this thing, at whatever cost, must be attained.

We don't know a millionth of one percent about anything.

Our virtues and our failings are inseparable, like force and matter. When they separate, man is no more.

The scientists of today think deeply instead of clearly. One must be sane to think clearly, but one can think deeply and be quite insane.

The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool.

I think it's much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong.

You have no responsibility to live up to what other people think you ought to accomplish.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

Science is much more than a body of knowledge. It is a way of thinking.

In a cosmic perspective, most human concerns seem insignificant, even petty. And yet our species is young and curious and brave and shows much promise.

It is a waste of time to be angry about my disability. One has to get on with life and I haven't done badly. People won't have time for you if you are always angry or complaining.

We are just an advanced breed of monkeys on a minor planet of a very average star. But we can understand the Universe. That makes us something very special.

So next time someone complains that you have made a mistake, tell him that may be a good thing. Because without imperfection, neither you nor I would exist.

Remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet.

Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge.

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with senses, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.

The universe is under no obligation to make sense to you.

The good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it.

My view is that if your philosophy is not unsettled daily then you are blind to all the universe has to offer.

The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions.

What it lies in our power to do, it lies in our power not to do.

There is a victory and defeat, the first and best of victories, the lowest and worst of defeats, which each man gains or sustains at the hands, not of another, but of himself.

There is no greater evil one can suffer than to hate reasonable discourse.

When we see men of worth, we should think of equaling them; when we see men of a contrary character, we should turn inwards and examine ourselves.

Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom. Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power.

To attain knowledge, add things every day. To attain wisdom, remove things every day.

We suffer more often in imagination than in reality.

It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare, but because we do not dare, things are difficult.

The best revenge is not to be like your enemy.

The soul becomes dyed with the colour of its thoughts.

Look within. Within is the fountain of the good, and it will ever bubble up, if thou wilt ever dig.

The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.

The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it.

Men are disturbed, not by things, but by the principles and notions which they form concerning things.

It is impossible for anyone to begin to learn that which he thinks he already knows.

For it is not death or pain that is to be feared, but the fear of pain or death.

Know, first, who you are, and then adorn yourself accordingly.

He who knows when he can fight and when he cannot will be victorious.

If you are irritated by every rub, how will your mirror be polished?

Many of the faults you see in others, dear reader, are your own nature reflected in them.

Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment.

Things do not change; we change.

Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.

The ancestor of every action is a thought.

Shallow men believe in luck, believe in circumstances... Strong men believe in cause and effect.

Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is an absurd one.

Man is free at the instant he wants to be.

Mature manhood: that means to have rediscovered the seriousness one had as a child at play.

Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms, to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.

When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.

The shoe that fits one person pinches another; there is no recipe for living that suits all cases.

Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.

The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.

Be not afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create the fact.

Genius, in truth, means little more than the faculty of perceiving in an unhabitual way.

The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.

The heart has its reasons, which reason does not know.

All the unhappiness of men arises from one single fact, that they cannot stay quietly in their own chamber.

Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature; but he is a thinking reed.

The greatest danger, that of losing one's own self, may pass off as quietly as if it were nothing.

How absurd men are! They never use the liberties they have, they demand those they do not have.

You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.

Failure is only the opportunity to more intelligently begin again.

Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is the probable reason why so few engage in it.

I always like to look on the optimistic side of life, but I am realistic enough to know that life is a complex matter.

There is no such thing as failure. Failure is just life trying to move us in another direction.

Nourish what makes you feel confident, connected, contented. Opportunity will rise to meet you.

I believe that if you think small, you'll stay small.

Aerodynamically, the bumblebee shouldn't be able to fly, but the bumblebee doesn't know it so it goes on flying anyway.

Have faith in yourself, but also have faith in faith.

Arrogance is a killer, and wearing ambition on one's sleeve can have the same effect.

Let him look out for the 'dark horse' in the boy who begins by sweeping out the office.

Try to turn every disaster into an opportunity.

You are neither right nor wrong because the crowd disagrees with you. You are right because your data and reasoning are right.

Intelligent investment is more a matter of mental approach than it is of technique.

The investor's chief problem, and even his worst enemy, is likely to be himself.

Truth, or more precisely, an accurate understanding of reality, is the essential foundation for any good outcome.

The learn-it-all does better than the know-it-all.

Optimism for me isn't a passive expectation that things will get better; it's a conviction that we can make things better.

Greatness is not a function of circumstance. Greatness, it turns out, is largely a matter of conscious choice.

You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.

Self-pity in its early stages is as snug as a feather mattress. Only when it hardens does it become uncomfortable.

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.

To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.

We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.

Most people are other people. Their thoughts are some one else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.

This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.

We know what we are, but know not what we may be.

There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.

The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves, that we are underlings.

Now is no time to think of what you do not have. Think of what you can do with what there is.

You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose.

It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.

Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.

Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.)

Re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul.

I exist as I am, that is enough.

We turn not older with years, but newer every day.

In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart.

Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind.

No need to hurry. No need to sparkle. No need to be anybody but oneself.

Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.

Reflect upon your present blessings, of which every man has many; not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.

We have all a better guide in ourselves, if we would attend to it, than any other person can be.

We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.

To see what is in front of one's nose needs a constant struggle.

Age is whatever you think it is. You are as old as you think you are.

It's a lack of faith that makes people afraid of meeting challenges, and I believe in myself.

If Ali says a mosquito can pull a plow, don't ask how. Hitch him up.

Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.

Limits, like fears, are often just an illusion.

Don't beat yourself. That's the worst kind of defeat you'll ever suffer.

You should never try to be better than someone else, you should always be learning from others. But you should never cease trying to be the best you could be because that's under your control and the other isn't.

Every strike brings me closer to the next home run.

No matter what, people are going to like you or not like you. So be authentic, and let them like you or not for who you actually are.

Get over yourself! 'Cause it's not about you, man.

Pressure is a privilege.

Ability is what you're capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it.

If the world were perfect, it wouldn't be.

Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless, like water. Now you put water in a cup, it becomes the cup.

Success is like reaching an important birthday and finding you're exactly the same.

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.

Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot.

Look up to the sky. You'll never find rainbows If you're looking down.

I think that if I am smart in business, it's just that I'm smart about who I am. I know what I can, can't, will and won't do.

Find out who you are and do it on purpose.

Knowing what you can not do is more important than knowing what you can do. In fact, that's good taste.

When you're too mad and too rattled to see straight, you're bound to make mistakes.

I paint self-portraits because I am so often alone, because I am the person I know best.

Feet, what do I need them for if I have wings to fly.

There's great value in being able to step back and laugh at yourself, at life and at attitudes. Laughter helps you put everything into perspective.