Bernice Johnson Reagon
Life's challenges are not supposed to paralyze you, they're supposed to help you discover who you are.
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In life you need either inspiration or desperation.
Predetermine the objectives you want to accomplish. Think big, act big and set out to accomplish big results.
No matter how dark things seem to be or actually are, raise your sights and see the possibilities -- they're always there.
Most appreciated after dinner speech - I'll pay the check.
Success seems to be connected with action. Successful men keep moving ; they make mistakes, but they do not quit.
This above all, To Thine Own Self Be True.
Bite off more than you can chew, then chew it.
Men spend their lives in anticipations, in determining to be vastly happy at some period when they have time. But the present time has one advantage over every otherit is our own. Past opportunities are gone, future have not come. We may lay in a stock of pleasures, as we would lay in a stock of wine , but if we defer the tasting of them too long, we shall find that both are soured by age.
Nothing contributes so much to tranquilize the mind as a steady purpose -- a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye.
If you wanna call me that, smile.
The best leader brings out the best in those he has stewardship over.
Find the good -- and praise it.
I always try to turn my personal struggles into something helpful for others.
Honor the ocean of love.
It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.
Ask for advice but do what you think is best.
What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals.
Great music and art are earthly wonders, but I think 'cubist' songs and paintings are hideous.
Stand as a rock , you are indestructible. You are the Self ( atman ) , the god of the universe.
If we are to have real peace, we must begin with the children.
Until we take how we see ourselves (and how we see others) into account, we will be unable to understand how others see and feel about themselves and their world. Unaware, we will project our intentions on their behavior and call ourselves objective.
Yes, you can be a dreamer and a doer too, if you will remove one word from your vocabulary : impossible.
The several tribes of indians inhabiting the regions of the upper missouri, and of whom I spoke in my last letter, are undoubtedly the finest looking, best equipped, and most beautifully costumed of any on the continent.
Love is the only gold.
To God, there is no zero. I still exist.
There is nothing as remarkable as learning how to think better.
I know it was you, Fredo. You broke my heart. You broke my heart.
A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity , an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.
The greatest weakness of most humans is their hesitancy to tell others how much they love them while they're still alive.
Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.
Lots of people want to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down.
Every problem has in it the seeds of its own solution. If you don't have any problems, you don't get any seeds.
I love thee, I love but thee with a love that shall not die till the sun grows cold and the stars grow old.
Big pay and little responsibility are circumstances seldom found together.
That love is all there is is all we know of love.
A way of life can not be successful so long as it is mere intellectual conviction. It must be deeply felt, deeply believed, dominant even in dreams.
If you advance confidently in the direction of your dreams and endeavor to leave the life which you have imagined, you will you will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.
Mama says, Stupid is as stupid does.
Attitudes are contagious. Make yours worth catching.
We don't live in a world of reality, we live in a world of perceptions.
Between stimulus and response, one has the freedom to choose.
Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it.
First comes thought, then organization of that thought, into ideas and plans, then transformation of those plans into reality. The beginning, as you will observe, is in your imagination.
Mama, face it. I was the slut of all time.
It's not the daily increase but daily decrease. Hack away at the unessential.
To be successful, you must decide exactly what you want to accomplish, then resolve to pay the price to get it.
Leadership - The art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.
Formal education will make you a living, self education will make you a fortune.
I don't want to move to a city where the only cultural advantage is being able to make a right turn on a red light.
Positive attitudes come in unlimited quantities. Everybody can have one free !
Perhaps the feelings that we experience when we are in love represent a normal state. Being in love shows a person who he should be.
What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.
I'd rather see a sermon than hear one any day , I'd rather have one walk beside me than merely point the way.
Life is a great big canvas, and you should throw all the paint you can on it.
If there is something to gain and nothing to lose by asking, by all means ask !
This is as true in everyday life as it is in battle we are given one life and the decision is ours whether to wait for circumstances to make up our mind, or whether to act, and in acting, to live.
I do not know how to kiss, or I would kiss you. Where do the noses go ?
Treat people as if they were what they ought to be and you help them become what they are capable of becoming.
True success is overcoming the fear of being unsuccessful.
"Every achiever I have ever met says, 'My life turned around when I began to believe in me.'"
Any man who selects a goal in life which can be fully achieved has already defined his own limitations.
What's meant to be will always find a way
Self delusion is pulling in your stomach when you step on the scales.
Have you ever danced with the devil in the pale moonlight ?
If a man hasn't discovered something that he will die for, he isn't fit to live.
All condemnation of others really condemns ourselves. Adjust the microcosm which is in your power to do and the macrocosm will adjust itself for you.
You know you are in love when you see the world in her eyes, and her eyes everywhere in the world.
There's no such thing as coulda, shoulda and woulda. If you shoulda and coulda, you woulda done it.
The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.
Faced with the choice between changing one's mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof.
What the world wants is character. The world is in need of those whose life is one burning love, selfless. That love will make every word tell like a thunderbolt.
Go to the people. Learn from them. Live with them. Start with what they know. Build with what they have. The best of leaders when the job is done, when the task is accomplished, the people will say we have done it ourselves.
Pay no attention to what the critics say , no statue has ever been erected to a critic.
You don't get to choose how you're going to die, only how you're going to live.
A man who has committed a mistake and doesn't correct it is committing another mistake.
Let us strive on to finish the work we are in
When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished by how much the old man had learned in 7 years.
Work like you don't need the money, love like you've never been hurt and dance like no one is watching
Truth fears no questions.
My fathers planted for me, and I planted for my children.
You cannot live without dying. You cannot live if you do not die psychologically every minute. This is not an intellectual paradox. To live completely, wholly, every day as if it were a new loveliness, there must be dying to everything of yesterday, otherwise you live mechanically, and a mechanical mind can never know what love is or what freedom is.
Discontent is the first step in the progress of a man or a nation.
If you are a minority of one, the truth is the truth.
Do not wait for ideal circumstances, they will never come, nor for the best opportunities.
One word frees us of all the weight and pain in life. That word is Love.
So long as we are loved by others I should say that we are almost indispensable , and no man is useless while he has a friend.
Young love is a flame , very pretty, often very hot and fierce, but still only light and flickering. The love of the older and disciplined heart is as coals, deep-burning, unquenchable.
If thou must love me, let it be for nought, except for love's sake only. Do not say, I love her for her smile, her look, her way of speaking gently, for a trick of thought that falls in well with mine, and, certes, brought a sense of pleasant ease on such a day. For these things in themselves, beloved, may be changed, or change for thee, and love so wrought, may be unwrought so.
If you can imagine it, you can achieve it , if you can dream it, you can become it.
We shall draw from the heart of suffering itself the means of inspiration and survival.
In the court of basketball, there are no objections only rejections.
Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.
Come out, come out, wherever you are !
Our real problem is not our strength today ; it is rather the vital necessity of action today to ensure strength tomorrow.
The best way to find yourself, is to lose yourself in the service of others.
You don't understand ! I could've had class. I could've been a contender. I could've been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am.
Things do not change we change.
That first peak is the best place to pause and look back, to see if you took the easiest route, to learn the lessons from the first climb. And it is the best place to examine the terrain ahead, to change your plans and goals, to take a deep breath and begin climbing again.
Fortune and love favor the brave.
Trouble is only opportunity in work clothes.