Donald A. Laird
Abilities wither under faultfinding, blossom with encouragement.
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In the eyes of a lover pockmarks are dimples.
A bold onset is half the battle.
Far away there in the sunshine are my highest aspirations. I may not reach them, but I can look up and see their beauty, believe in them, and try to follow where they lead.
Hatred paralyzes life, love releases it. Hatred confuses life, love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life, love illumines it.
The person who makes a success of living is the one who sees his goal steadily and aims for it unswervingly. That is dedication.
The chances are that you have already come to believe that happiness is unattainable. But men have attained it. And they have attained it by realizing that happiness does not spring from the procuring of physical or mental pleasure, but from the development of reason and the adjustment of conduct to principles.
Love is not only something you feel. It's something you do.
To know oneself is to study oneself in action with another person.
If you want to be enthusiastic, act enthusiastic.
You are what you are and you are where you are because of what has gone into your mind. You change what you are and you change where you are by changing what goes into your mind.
Adversity is the diamond dust that heaven polishes its jewels with.
A man is not old until regrets start taking place of dreams.
Happiness itself does not stay -- only moments of happiness do.
Love doesn't just sit there like a stone, it has to be made, like bread, remade all the time, made new.
The greatest sin is to think yourself weak.
Jane. Tarzan. Jane. Tarzan.
All the technology in the world will never replace a positive attitude.
Inch by inch, it's a cinch.
If you don't quit, and don't cheat, and don't run home when trouble arrives, you can only win.
Seize the day.
Effective people are not problem-minded , they're opportunity-minded. They feed opportunities and starve problems.
Life is change ; growth is optional. Choose wisely.
Character can not be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved
Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all.
Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.
Whether you think you can or think you can't, you're right.
It takes a strong fish to swim against the current. Even a dead one can float with it.
It's not what happens to you, it's what you do about it that makes the difference.
Without love our life is a, ship without a rudder, like a body without a soul.
What is strength without a double share of wisdom ?
Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.
Don't go through life, grow through life.
Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.
Joy can be real only if people look on their life as a service, and have a definite object in life outside themselves and their personal happiness.
Teaching is only demonstrating that it is possible. Learning is making it possible for yourself.
You can get everything in life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want.
Don't hide your light under a bushel.
Look within, for within is the wellspring of virtue, which will not cease flowing, if you cease not from digging.
The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up.
A lie has speed, but truth has endurance.
In any situation, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing you can do is the wrong thing, the worst thing you can do is nothing.
The best and most beautiful things in this world can not be seen or even heard, but must be felt with the heart.
Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.
The best way to predict the future is to create it.
Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.
What is life without the radiance of love.
There is no end. There is no beginning. There is only the infinite passion of life.
Look at every situation as if you were in the future and you were looking back on it.
You haven't failed until you quit trying.
A lawyer dies and goes to hell. The devil says he'll make a deal with him. He can go to heaven if he gives up the souls of his wife and two kids. 'Sure' says the lawyer, 'but what's the catch ? '
In the long run, we only hit what we aim at.
You can have anything you want ? if you want it badly enough. You can be anything you want to be, do anything you set out to accomplish if you hold to that desire with singleness of purpose.
Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm.
If you build it, he will come.
Successful people are always looking for opportunities to help others. Unsuccessful people are always asking, " What's in it for me ? ".
There are no monuments dedicated to me and my name will soon be forgotten, but I've loved another with all my heart and soul, and to me, this has always been enough.
It is easier to suppress the first desire than to satisfy all that follow.
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
We have not yet begun to fight.
That love is all there is is all we know of love.
"Every achiever I have ever met says, 'My life turned around when I began to believe in me.'"
If you love somebody, let them go, for if they return, they were always yours. And if they don't, they never were.
Accept the past for what it was. Acknowledge the present for what it is. Anticipate the future for what it can become.
Within us all there are wells of thought and dynamos of energy which are not suspected until emergencies arise. Then oftentimes we find that it is comparatively simple to double or treble our former capacities and to amaze ourselves by the results achieved. Quotas, when set up for us by others, are challenges which goad us on to surpass ourselves. The outstanding leaders of every age are those who set up their own quotas and constantly achieve them.
Get into a line that you will find to be a deep personal interest, something you really enjoy spending twelve to fifteen hours a day working at, and the rest of the time thinking about.
Someday when I grow up, finish school and get a job, I'll start living my life the way I want someday after the mortgage is paid off, the finances are on track and the kids are grown up, I'll drive that new car and take exciting trips abroad someday, now that I'm 9 about to retire, I'll buy that beautiful motor home and travel across this great country, and see all there is to see someday.
Admission of ignorance is often the first step in our education.
Whatever you are be a good one.
The positive thinker is a hard-headed, tough-minded, and factual realist. He sees all the difficulties clearly... which is more than can be said for the average negative thinker. But he sees more than difficulties -- he tries to see the solutions of those difficulties.
Live as if you were to die tomorrow , Learn as if you were to live forever.
It takes a great deal of character strength to apologize quickly out of one's heart rather than out of pity. A person must possess himself and have a deep sense of security in fundamental principles and values in order to genuinely apologize.
Love does not conquer all things, but it does set all things right.
Experience is a wonderful thing. It enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again.
Romantic love is an illusion. Most of us discover this truth at the end of a love affair or else when the sweet emotions of love lead us into marriage and then turn down their flames.
To understand the heart and mind of a person, look not at what he has already achieved, but at what he aspires to.
The death of fear is in doing what you fear to do.
Immature love says, I love you because I need you. Mature love says, I need you because I love you.
We are confronted with insurmountable opportunities.
My precious.
"I am the thread that runs through all these pearls", and each pearl is a religion or even a sect thereof. Such are the different pearls, and god is the thread that runs through all of them, most people, however, are entirely unconscious of it.
People who exercise their embryonic freedom day after day, little by little, expand that freedom. People who do not will find that it withers until they are literally 'being lived'. They are acting out scripts written by parents, associates and society.
Hearts will never be practical until they are made unbreakable.
Sometimes things become possible if we want them bad enough.
I can't understand why people are frightened by new ideas. I'm frightened by old ones.
Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.
We all love best not those who offend us least, nor those who have done most for us, but those who make it most easy for us to forgive them.
The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead. His eyes are closed.
No limits are set to the ascent of man, and to each and everyone the highest stands open. Here it is only your personal choice that decides.
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.
It is better to bind your children to you by a feeling of respect and by gentleness, than by fear.
Success in the affairs of life often serves to hide one's abilities, whereas adversity frequently gives one an opportunity to discover them.
Honor the ocean of love.
What is tolerance ? It is the consequence of humanity. We are all formed of frailty and error , let us pardon reciprocally each other's folly - that is the first law of nature.
In my case, self-absorption is completely justified. I have never discovered any other subject so worthy of my attention.
You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.
Success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm.
If I accept you as you are, I will make you worse , however if I treat you as though you are what you are capable of becoming, I help you become that.
Here's to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes... the ones who see things differently -- they're not fond of rules... You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can't do is ignore them because they change things... they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.
We only love truly once. It is the first time and succeeding passions are less uncontrolled.
I consider my ability to arouse enthusiasm among my people the greatest asset I possess, and the way to develop the best in a person is by appreciation and encouragement. I believe in giving people incentive to work. So I am anxious to praise but loath to find fault. I am hearty in my approbation and lavish in my praise.