Inspiring Quotes About Life – Part 1
Menanteau Serfontein – 3 December 2021
“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I – I took the one less travelled by, And that has made all the difference.” ― Robert Frost – American poet
“The future has several names. For the weak, it is impossible; for the faint-hearted, it is unknown; but for the valiant, it is ideal.” ― Victor Hugo – French poet, novelist, essayist, playwright, and dramatist of the Romantic movement
“Short as life is, we make it still shorter by the careless waste of time.” ― Victor Hugo
“Bad times, hard times, this is what people keep saying; but let us live well, and times shall be good. We are the times: Such as we are, such are the times.” ― Saint Augustine – theologian and philosopher
“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 harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” ― Mark Twain – writer, humourist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer
“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.” ― Oscar Wilde – Irish poet and playwright
“Too many of us are not living our dreams because we are living our fears.” ― Les Brown – politician and motivational speaker
“I am who I am today because of the choices I made yesterday.” ― Eleanor Roosevelt – American political figure, diplomat, and activist
“There is no saint without a past, no sinner without a future.” ― Saint Augustine
“Rules for Self-Discovery:
1. What we want most;
2. What we think about most;
3. How we use our money;
4. What we do with our leisure time;
5. The company we enjoy;
6. Who and what we admire;
7. What we laugh at.”
― A. W. Tozer
“A soft, easy life is not worth living, if it impairs the fibre of brain and heart and muscle. We must dare to be great; and we must realize that greatness is the fruit of toil and sacrifice and high courage… For us is the life of action, of strenuous performance of duty; let us live in the harness, striving mightily; let us rather run the risk of wearing out than rusting out.” ― Theodore Roosevelt – Conservationist, historian, and writer who served as the 26th president of the United States
“A world where everything was easy would be a nursery for babies, but not at all a fit place for men.” ― Charles Spurgeon – theologian and preacher
“Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty… I have never in my life envied a human being who led an easy life. I have envied a great many people who led difficult lives and led them well.” ― Theodore Roosevelt
“Opportunity is missed by most people, because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.” ― Thomas Edison – inventor and businessman
“At dawn, when you have trouble getting out of bed, tell yourself: “I have to go to work— as a human being. What do I have to complain of, if I’m going to do what I was born for — the things I was brought into the world to do? Or is this what I was created for? To huddle under the blankets and stay warm?” — But it’s nicer here.… So you were born to feel “nice”? Instead of doing things and experiencing them? Don’t you see the plants, the birds, the ants and spiders and bees going about their individual tasks, putting the world in order, as best they can? And you’re not willing to do your job as a human being? Why aren’t you running to do what your nature demands? —But we have to sleep sometime.… Agreed. But nature set a limit on that— as it did on eating and drinking. And you’re over the limit. You’ve had more than enough of that. But not of working. There you’re still below your quota.” ― Marcus Aurelius – Roman emperor and a Stoic philosopher
“I don’t pity any man who does hard work worth doing. I admire him. I pity the creature who does not work, at whichever end of the social scale he may regard himself as being.” ― Theodore Roosevelt
“Motivation is a fire from within. If someone else tries to light that fire under you, chances are it will burn very briefly.” ― Stephen R. Covey – educator, author, businessman
“Let every man abide in the calling wherein he is called and his work will be as sacred as the work of the ministry. It is not what a man does that determines whether his work is sacred or secular, it is why he does it.” ― A.W. Tozer – pastor, author, magazine editor, and spiritual mentor
On critics: “It is not the critic who counts. … The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by the dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly … who, at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly; so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.” ― Theodore Roosevelt
“If it’s endurable, then endure it. Stop complaining. If it’s unendurable … then stop complaining. Just remember: you can endure anything your mind can make endurable, by treating it as in your interest to do so.” ― Marcus Aurelius
“Courage is not having the strength to go on; it is going on when you don’t have the strength.” ― Theodore Roosevelt
“Nothing has ever been achieved by the person who says, ‘It can’t be done.’” ― Eleanor Roosevelt
“The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person who is doing it.” ― Chinese Proverb
“It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed.” ― Theodore Roosevelt
“Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.” ― Albert Einstein – one of the greatest physicists of all time
“Never leave till tomorrow which you can do today.” ― Benjamin Franklin – writer, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, printer, publisher and political philosopher
“Rest time is not waste time. It is economy to gather fresh strength…It is wisdom to take occasional furlough. In the long run, we shall do more by sometimes doing less.” ― Charles Spurgeon
“He remembers our frame and knows that we are dust. He may sometimes chasten us, it is true, but even this He does with a smile – the proud, tender smile of a Father who is bursting with pleasure over an imperfect but promising son who is coming every day to look more and more like the One whose child he is.” ― A.W. Tozer
“God will not go forth with that man who marches in his own strength.” ― Charles Spurgeon
“Knowing what’s right doesn’t mean much unless you do what’s right.” ― Theodore Roosevelt
“Train up a child in the way he should go – but be sure you go that way yourself.” ― Charles Spurgeon
“You often hear people speaking as if life was like striving upward toward a mountain peak. That is not so. Life is as if you were traveling a ridge crest. You have the gulf of inefficiency on one side and the gulf of wickedness on the other, and it helps not to have avoided one gulf if you fall into the other.” ― Theodore Roosevelt
“Your worth consists in what you are and not in what you have.” ― Thomas Edison
“To educate a person in the mind but not in morals is to educate a menace to society.”
― Theodore Roosevelt
“If we never have headaches through rebuking our children, we shall have plenty of heartaches when they grow up.” ― Charles Spurgeon
On virtue: “No nation deserves to exist if it permits itself to lose the stern and virile virtues; and this without regard to whether the loss is due to the growth of a heartless and all-absorbing commercialism, to prolonged indulgence in luxury and soft, effortless ease.” ― Theodore Roosevelt
“Don’t educate your children to be rich. Educate them to be happy, so that they know the value of things, not the price.” ― Victor Hugo
“Nothing teaches us about the preciousness of the Creator as much as when we learn the emptiness of everything else.” ― Charles Spurgeon
