Margaret Laurence
Know that although in the eternal scheme of things you are small, you are also unique and irreplaceable, as are all your fellow humans everywhere in the world.
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There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must take it because his conscience tells him it is right.
Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it's time to pause and reflect.
There is no surprise more magical than the surprise of being loved , it is God's finger on man's shoulder.
He who risks and fails can be forgiven. He who never risks and never fails is a failure in his whole being.
Find the person who will love you because of your differences and not in spite of them and you have found a lover for life.
Deep down inside of all of us is the power to accomplish what we want to, if we'll just stop looking elsewhere.
To love and win is the best thing. To love and lose, the next best.
God is subtle but he is not malicious.
When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.
Some love lasts a lifetime. True love lasts forever.
There is only one way to happiness, and that is to cease worrying things which are beyond the power of our will.
From Freud we learned that the past exists now in the person. Now we must learn, from growth theory and self-actualization theory that the future also now exists in the person in the form of ideals, hopes, duties, tasks, plans, goals, unrealized potentials, mission, fate, destiny, etc. One for whom no future exists is reduced to the concrete, to hopelessness, to emptiness.
If you would live your life with ease, do what you ought, not what you please.
What is life without the radiance of love.
They will rise highest who strive for the highest place.
The way to find out about your happiness is to keep your mind on those moments when you feel most happy, when you really are happy -- not excited, not just thrilled, but deeply happy. This requires a little bit of self-analysis. What is it that makes you happy ? Stay with it, no matter what people tell you. This is what I call 'following your bliss'. If you follow your bliss, you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. Wherever you are -- if you are following your bliss, you are enjoying that refreshment, that life within you, all the time.
Well done is better than well said.
When I give a minister an order, I leave it to him to find the means to carry it out.
I never think of the future. It comes soon enough.
One had to cram all this stuff into one's mind for the examinations, whether one liked it or not. This coercion had such a deterring effect on me that, after I had passed the final examination, I found the consideration of any scientific problems distasteful to me for an entire year.
"Great works are performed not by strength but by perseverance."
You don't get to choose how you're going to die, only how you're going to live.
Love is a fire. But whether it is going to warm your heart or burn down your house, you can never tell.
It is always your next move.
Few people think more than two or three times a year. I have made an international reputation by thinking once or twice a week.
Motivation is like food for the brain. You can not get enough in one sitting. It needs continual and regular refills.
A man who has committed a mistake and doesn't correct it is committing another mistake.
Love is the true means by which the world is enjoyed. Our love to others, and others love to us.
Wicked men obey from fear, good men, from love.
We don't stop playing because we grow old, we grow old because we stop playing.
Trust men and they will be true to you, treat them greatly, and they will show themselves great.
As if !
Drop the idea that you are Atlas carrying the world on your shoulders. The world would go on even without you. Don't take yourself so seriously.
Nurture your mind with great thoughts, for you will never go any higher than you think.
Gravitation can not be held responsible for people falling in love.
Treat a man as he is and he will remain as he is. Treat a man as he can and should be and he will become as he can and should be.
The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.
It is of practical value to learn to like yourself. Since you must spend so much time with yourself you might as well get some satisfaction out of the relationship.
You will find as you look back upon your life that the moments when you have really lived, are the moments when you have done things in a spirit of love.
Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs.
The whole universe is only the self with variations, one tune made bearable by variations. Sometimes there are discords, but they only make the subsequent harmony more perfect. In this hell of a world one can bring a little joy and peace even for a day into the heart of a single person, that much alone is true, this I have learnt after suffering all my life, all else is mere moonshine.
Knowledge of what is possible is the beginning of happiness.
Happiness is not having what you want, but wanting what you have.
Treat people as if they were what they ought to be and you help them become what they are capable of becoming.
Union gives strength.
Happiness is not pleasure, it is victory.
Our love is here to stay.
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.
The ability to convert ideas to things is the secret to outward success.
To love deeply in one direction makes us more loving in all others.
Love is an electric blanket with somebody else in control of the switch.
The royal road to a man's heart is to talk to him about the things he treasures most.
If money is your hope for independence, you will never have it. The only real security that a man can have in this world is a reserve of knowledge, experience and ability.
Believe that the loose ball that you are chasing has your name on it.
Hey, lady !
If you aren't going all the way, why go at all ?
As you think in your heart, so shall you be.
You really can change the world if you care enough.
If we all did the things we are capable of doing we would literally astound ourselves.
Say hello to my little friend !
Being defeated is only a temporary condition , giving up is what makes it permanent.
It is not the critic who counts, nor the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again, who knows great enthusiasms, great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who, at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.
And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body, and be yet thankful.
What you cannot enforce, Do not command.
As a writer, I tell stories and people give me money. Then financial planners tell me stories, and I give them money.
Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.
Blessed are they who can laugh at themselves for they shall never cease to be amused.
Remember tonight, for it is the beginning of always.
Love never claims, it ever gives.
A gentle hand may lead even an elephant by a single hair.
When you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.
For one person to love another, that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the last test and proof, the work for which all else is but preparation.
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.
The reward of a thing well done is to have done it.
The first requisite for success is to develop the ability to focus and apply your mental and physical energies to the problem at hand - without growing weary. Because such thinking is often difficult, there seems to be no limit to which some people will go to avoid the effort and labor that is associated with it.
Love is the irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired.
One of the oldest human needs is having someone to wonder where you are when you don't come home at night.
I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
What ever you are be a good one.
Some people plant in the spring and leave in the summer. If you're signed up for a season, see it through. You don't have to stay forever, but at least stay until you see it through.
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.
Love is more than a feeling, it's a state of mind.
Rather than focusing on things and time, focus on preserving and enhancing relationships and on accomplishing results.
The man of virtue makes the difficulty to be overcome his first business, and success only a subsequent consideration.
The most interesting thing about a postage stamp is the persistence with which it sticks to its job.
The critical ingredient is getting off your butt and doing something. It's as simple as that. A lot of people have ideas, but there are few who decide to do something about them now. Not tomorrow. Not next week. But today. The true entrepreneur is a doer.
Procrastination is the thief of time.
If we don't change, we don't grow. If we don't grow, we aren't really living.
Great and glorious events which dazzle the beholder are represented by politicians as the outcome of grand designs whereas they are usually products of temperaments and passions.
If you can dream it, you can do it.
Power is not really good or bad , it is neutral. Power itself is not negative or positive, although our feelings about it may be. Power is the potential to influence others for good or evil, to be a blessing or a scourge. Like nuclear energy, it can provide the electricity to light a city, or it can fuel the bomb that destroys it.
Deals are my art form. Other people paint beautifully on canvas or write wonderful poetry. I like making deals, preferably big deals. That's how I get my kicks.
Failing to plan is planning to fail.
Your most expensive advice is the free advice you receive from your financially struggling friends and relatives.
A part of kindness consists in loving people more than they deserve.
If our thoughts and hopes are elsewhere, it is impossible to set our faces steadily toward the work required of us.
We must all suffer one of two things : the pain of discipline or the pain of regret or disappointment.
Remember happiness doesn't depend on who you are or what you have, it depends solely upon what you think.
You can not escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.
Surprises and reverses can serve as an incentive for great accomplishment. There are no rules here, we're just trying to accomplish something.