c2p-cmd/Good-Quotes-Authors huggingface dataset:
Every atom in your body came from a star that exploded. And, the atoms in your left hand probably came from a different star than your right hand. It really is the most poetic thing I know about physics: You are all stardust. You couldn’t be here if stars hadn’t exploded, because the elements - the carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, iron, all the things that matter for evolution and for life - weren’t created at the beginning of time. They were created in the nuclear furnaces of stars, and the only way for them to get into your body is if those stars were kind enough to explode. So, forget Jesus. The stars died so that you could be here today.
— Lawrence M. Krauss
But if everything was always smooth and perfect, you'd get too used to that, you know? You have to have a little bit of disorganization now and then. Otherwise, you'll never really enjoy it when things go right.
— Sarah Dessen, The Truth About Forever
Here's what I think, Mr. Wind-Up Bird," said May Kasahara. "Everybody's born with some different thing at the core of their existence. And that thing, whatever it is, becomes like a heat source that runs each person from the inside. I have one too, of course. Like everybody else. But sometimes it gets out of hand. It swells or shrinks inside me, and it shakes me up. What I'd really like to do is find a way to communicate that feeling to another person. But I can't seem to do it. They just don't get it. Of course, the problem could be that I'm not explaining it very well, but I think it's because they're not listening very well. They pretend to be listening, but they're not, really. So I get worked up sometimes, and I do some crazy things.
— Haruki Murakami, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
There is more to life than simply increasing its speed.
— Mahatma Gandhi
Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash.
— Leonard Cohen
Every woman that finally figured out her worth, has picked up her suitcases of pride and boarded a flight to freedom, which landed in the valley of change.
— Shannon L. Alder
Don't confuse poor decision-making with destiny. Own your mistakes. It’s ok
—  we all make them. Learn from them so they can empower you!
Hardships make or break people.
— Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind
Life gives us choices. You either grab on with both hands and just go for it, or you sit on the sidelines.
— Christine Feehan, Night Game
I've apparently been the victim of growing up, which apparently happens to all of us at one point or another. It's been going on for quite some time now, without me knowing it. I've found that growing up can mean a lot of things. For me, it doesn't mean I should become somebody completely new and stop loving the things I used to love. It means I've just added more things to my list. Like for example, I'm still beyond obsessed with the winter season and I still start putting up strings of lights in September. I still love sparkles and grocery shopping and really old cats that are only nice to you half the time. I still love writing in my journal and wearing dresses all the time and staring at chandeliers. But some new things I've fallen in love with -- mismatched everything. Mismatched chairs, mismatched colors, mismatched personalities. I love spraying perfumes I used to wear when I was in high school. It brings me back to the days of trying to get a close parking spot at school, trying to get noticed by soccer players, and trying to figure out how to avoid doing or saying anything uncool, and wishing every minute of every day that one day maybe I'd get a chance to win a Grammy. Or something crazy and out of reach like that. ;) I love old buildings with the paint chipping off the walls and my dad's stories about college. I love the freedom of living alone, but I also love things that make me feel seven again. Back then naivety was the norm and skepticism was a foreign language, and I just think every once in a while you need fries and a chocolate milkshake and your mom. I love picking up a cookbook and closing my eyes and opening it to a random page, then attempting to make that recipe. I've loved my fans from the very first day, but they've said things and done things recently that make me feel like they're my friends -- more now than ever before. I'll never go a day without thinking about our memories together.
— Taylor Swift, Taylor Swift
To look life in the face, always, to look life in the face, and to know it for what it is...at last, to love it for what it is, and then, to put it away...
— Virginia Woolf
It doesn’t matter how many times you get knocked down. All that matters is you get up one more time than you were knocked down.
— Roy T. Bennett
Don't wait for the right moment to start, start and make each moment right.
— Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart
Good people see the good and bring out the best in other people.
— Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart
What you stay focused on will grow.
— Roy T. Bennett
If you don't know who you truly are, you'll never know what you really want.
— Roy T. Bennett
Gratitude builds a bridge to abundance.
— Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart
Do not let the roles you play in life make you forget who you are.
— Roy T. Bennett
Life is painful and messed up. It gets complicated at the worst of times, and sometimes you have no idea where to go or what to do. Lots of times people just let themselves get lost, dropping into a wide open, huge abyss. But that's why we have to keep trying. We have to push through all that hurts us, work past all our memories that are haunting us. Sometimes the things that hurt us are the things that make us strongest. A life without experience, in my opinion, is no life at all. And that's why I tell everyone that, even when it hurts, never stop yourself from living.
— Alysha Speer
This isn't life in the fast lane, it's life in the oncoming traffic.
— Terry Pratchett
There are many things worth living for, a few things worth dying for, and nothing worth killing for.
— Tom Robbins, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues
Independence is my happiness, and I view things as they are, without regard to place or person; my country is the world, and my religion is to do good.
— Thomas Paine, Rights of Man
When a man cannot choose, he ceases to be a man.
— Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange
No one should ever ask themselves that: why am I unhappy? The question carries within it the virus that will destroy everything. If we ask that question, it means we want to find out what makes us happy. If what makes us happy is different from what we have now, then we must either change once and for all or stay as we are, feeling even more unhappy.
— Paulo Coelho, The Zahir
Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent's generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.
— Bill Gates
Don’t bother trying to explain your emotions. Live everything as intensely as you can and keep whatever you felt as a gift from God. The best way to destroy the bridge between the visible and invisible is by trying to explain your emotions.
— Paulo Coelho, Brida
When you hold a grudge, you want someone else’s sorrow to reflect your level of hurt but the two rarely meet.
— Steve Maraboli, Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience
All opinions are not equal. Some are a very great deal more robust, sophisticated and well supported in logic and argument than others.
— Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt
I'm the girl nobody knows until she commits suicide. Then suddenly everyone had a class with her.
— Tom Leveen, Party
Why Not You?Today, many will awaken with a fresh sense of inspiration. Why not you?Today, many will open their eyes to the beauty that surrounds them. Why not you?Today, many will choose to leave the ghost of yesterday behind and seize the immeasurable power of today. Why not you?Today, many will break through the barriers of the past by looking at the blessings of the present. Why not you?Today, for many the burden of self doubt and insecurity will be lifted by the security and confidence of empowerment. Why not you?Today, many will rise above their believed limitations and make contact with their powerful innate strength. Why not you?Today, many will choose to live in such a manner that they will be a positive role model for their children. Why not you?Today, many will choose to free themselves from the personal imprisonment of their bad habits. Why not you?Today, many will choose to live free of conditions and rules governing their own happiness. Why not you?Today, many will find abundance in simplicity. Why not you?Today, many will be confronted by difficult moral choices and they will choose to do what is right instead of what is beneficial. Why not you?Today, many will decide to no longer sit back with a victim mentality, but to take charge of their lives and make positive changes. Why not you?Today, many will take the action necessary to make a difference. Why not you?Today, many will make the commitment to be a better mother, father, son, daughter, student, teacher, worker, boss, brother, sister, & so much more. Why not you?Today is a new day!Many will seize this day.Many will live it to the fullest.Why not you?
— Steve Maraboli, Life, the Truth, and Being Free
The only position that leaves me with no cognitive dissonance is atheism. It is not a creed. Death is certain, replacing both the siren-song of Paradise and the dread of Hell. Life on this earth, with all its mystery and beauty and pain, is then to be lived far more intensely: we stumble and get up, we are sad, confident, insecure, feel loneliness and joy and love. There is nothing more; but I want nothing more.
— Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Infidel
MagicSandra’s seen a leprechaun,Eddie touched a troll,Laurie danced with witches once,Charlie found some goblins gold.Donald heard a mermaid sing,Susy spied an elf,But all the magic I have knownI've had to make myself.
— Shel Silverstein, Where the Sidewalk Ends
How often do we tell our own life story? How often do we adjust, embellish, make sly cuts? And the longer life goes on, the fewer are those around to challenge our account, to remind us that our life is not our life, merely the story we have told about our life. Told to others, but—mainly—to ourselves.
— Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending
There was a moment in my life when I really wanted to kill myself. And there was one other moment when I was close to that. . . . But even in my most jaded times, I had some hope.
— Gerard Way
One of the most spiritual things you can do is embrace your humanity. Connect with those around you today. Say, "I love you", "I'm sorry", "I appreciate you", "I'm proud of you"...whatever you're feeling. Send random texts, write a cute note, embrace your truth and share it...cause a smile today for someone else...and give plenty of hugs.
— Steve Maraboli
Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, alistening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, allof which have the potential to turn a life around.
— Leo Buscaglia
If you want to identify me, ask me not where I live, or what I like to eat, or how I comb my hair, but ask me what I am living for, in detail, ask me what I think is keeping me from living fully for the thing I want to live for.
— Thomas Merton
I seem to have run in a great circle, and met myself again on the starting line.
— Jeanette Winterson, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit
Some things you hear with your ears. Others, you hear with your heart.
— Sarah J. Maas, Crown of Midnight
Life, unfortunately, doesn't seem to care what we want.
— Richelle Mead, Last Sacrifice
You cannot control what happens to you, but you can control your attitude toward what happens to you, and in that, you will be mastering change rather than allowing it to master you.
— Brian Tracy
Some things cannot be taught
—  they must be experienced. You never learn the most valuable lessons in life until you go through your own journey.
Challenge and adversity are meant to help you know who you are. Storms hit your weakness, but unlock your true strength.
— Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart
Your life is an occasion. Rise to it.
— Suzanne Weyn, Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium
When it's over, I want to say: all my lifeI was a bride married to amazement.I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms. When it is over, I don't want to wonderif I have made of my life something particular, and real.I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened,or full of argument. I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.
— Mary Oliver
Earth's crammed with heaven...But only he who sees, takes off his shoes.
— Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Aurora Leigh
Art is the proper task of life. 
— Friedrich Nietzsche
No one here gets out alive.
— Jim Morrison
Life isn't as serious as the mind makes it out to be.
— Eckhart Tolle
How terribly sad it was that people are made in such a way that they get used to something as extraordinary as living.
— Jostein Gaarder, The Solitaire Mystery
If your daily life seems poor, do not blame it; blame yourself, tell yourself that you are not poet enough to call forth its riches; for to the creator there is no poverty and no poor indifferent place.
— Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
The great object of life is sensation- to feel that we exist, even though in pain.
— George Gordon Byron
Take it moment by moment, and you will find that we are all, as I’ve said before, bugs in amber.
— Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Most everything you think you know about me is nothing more than memories.
— Haruki Murakami, A Wild Sheep Chase
We demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!
— Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
The human race tends to remember the abuses to which it has been subjected rather than the endearments. What's left of kisses? Wounds, however, leave scars.
— Bertolt Brecht
People tend to be generous when sharing their nonsense, fear, and ignorance. And while they seem quite eager to feed you their negativity, please remember that sometimes the diet we need to be on is a spiritual and emotional one. Be cautious with what you feed your mind and soul. Fuel yourself with positivity and let that fuel propel you into positive action.
— Steve Maraboli, Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience
Never allow a person to tell you no who doesn't have the power to say yes.
— Eleanor Roosevelt
Growing up means learning what life is. When you're little, you have a set of ideals, standards, criteria, plans, outlooks, and you think that you have to sit around and wait for them to happen to you and then life will work. But life isn't like that, for anybody; you can't fall in love with a standard, you have to fall in love with a person. You can't live in a criteria, you have to live your life. You can't wait for your plans to materialize, because they may never materialize the way you think they will. You can't wait to watch your ideals and standards walk up to you, because you can't know what's yours until you have it. I always say, always take the first chance in case you never get a second one, but growing up takes that even one step further, growing up means that you have to hold on to what you have, when you have it, because what you have- that's yours- and all the ideals and criteria you have set in your head, those aren't yours, because those haven't happened to you.
— C. JoyBell C.
Life is a tapestry woven by the decisions we make.
— Sherrilyn Kenyon, Kiss of the Night
It doesn't matter what you did or where you were...it matters where you are and what you're doing. Get out there! Sing the song in your heart and NEVER let anyone shut you up!!
— Steve Maraboli, Life, the Truth, and Being Free
Live life fully while you're here. Experience everything. Take care of yourself and your friends. Have fun, be crazy, be weird. Go out and screw up! You're going to anyway, so you might as well enjoy the process. Take the opportunity to learn from your mistakes: find the cause of your problem and eliminate it. Don't try to be perfect; just be an excellent example of being human.
— Anthony Robbins
Quiet is peace. Tranquility. Quiet is turning down the volume knob on life. Silence is pushing the off button. Shutting it down. All of it. - Amir
— Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner
The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera.
— Dorothea Lange
Perhaps - I want the old days back again and they'll never come back, and I am haunted by the memory of them and of the world falling about my ears. 
— Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind
Enjoy every step you take. If you're curious, there is always something new to be discovered in the backdrop of your daily life.
— Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart
It is difficult to live in and enjoy the moment when you are thinking about the past or worrying about the future. You cannot change your past, but you can ruin the present by worrying about your future. Learn from the past, plan for the future. The more you live in and enjoy the present moment, the happier you will be.
— Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart
When things do not go your way, remember that every challenge — every adversity — contains within it the seeds of opportunity and growth.
— Roy T. Bennett
Nothing makes a person happier than having a happy heart.
— Roy T. Bennett
Changing your outside world cannot make you happy if you are an unhappy person. The real personal change can only happen from the inside out. If you firstly create the change within yourself, you can turn your life around.
— Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart
Closed in a room, my imagination becomes the universe, and the rest of the world is missing out.
— Criss Jami, Diotima, Battery, Electric Personality
Hollowness: that I understand. I'm starting to believe that there isn't anything you can do to fix it. That's what I've taken from the therapy sessions: the holes in your life are permanent. You have to grow around them, like tree roots around concrete; you mold yourself through the gaps
— Paula Hawkins, The Girl on the Train
Do not ask your childrento strive for extraordinary lives.Such striving may seem admirable,but it is the way of foolishness.Help them instead to find the wonderand the marvel of an ordinary life.Show them the joy of tastingtomatoes, apples and pears.Show them how to crywhen pets and people die.Show them the infinite pleasurein the touch of a hand.And make the ordinary come alive for them.The extraordinary will take care of itself.
— William  Martin, The Parent's Tao Te Ching: Ancient Advice for Modern Parents
I am not the same having seen the moon shine on the other side of the world.
— Mary Anne Radmacher
Be happy, but never satisfied.
— Bruce Lee
CALVIN:This whole Santa Claus thing just doesn't make sense. Why all the secrecy? Why all the mystery?If the guy exists why doesn't he ever show himself and prove it?And if he doesn't exist what's the meaning of all this?HOBBES:I dunno. Isn't this a religious holiday? CALVIN:Yeah, but actually, I've got the same questions about God.
— Bill Watterson
You were born with potential. You were born with goodness and trust. You were born with ideals and dreams. You were born with greatness. You were born with wings. You are not meant for crawling, so don't. You have wings. Learn to use them and fly.
— Jalaluddin Rumi
You know what I think?" she says. "That people's memories are maybe the fuel they burn to stay alive. Whether those memories have any actual importance or not, it doesn't matter as far as the maintenance of life is concerned. They're all just fuel. Advertising fillers in the newspaper, philosophy books, dirty pictures in a magazine, a bundle of ten-thousand-yen bills: when you feed 'em to the fire, they're all just paper. The fire isn't thinking 'Oh, this is Kant,' or 'Oh, this is the Yomiuri evening edition,' or 'Nice tits,' while it burns. To the fire, they're nothing but scraps of paper. It's the exact same thing. Important memories, not-so-important memories, totally useless memories: there's no distinction--they're all just fuel.
— Haruki Murakami, After Dark
Let today be the day you stop being haunted by the ghost of yesterday. Holding a grudge & harboring anger/resentment is poison to the soul. Get even with people...but not those who have hurt us, forget them, instead get even with those who have helped us.
— Steve Maraboli, Life, the Truth, and Being Free
I am always sad, I think. Perhaps this signifies that I am not sad at all, because sadness is something lower than your normal disposition, and I am always the same thing. Perhaps I am the only person in the world, then, who never becomes sad. Perhaps I am lucky.
— Jonathan Safran Foer, Everything Is Illuminated
Cinema is the ultimate pervert art. It doesn't give you what you desire - it tells you how to desire.
— Slavoj Žižek
The cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.
— Henry David Thoreau, Walden
O Me! O life!... of the questions of these recurring; Of the endless trains of the faithless—of cities fill’d with the foolish; Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?) Of eyes that vainly crave the light—of the objects mean—of the struggle ever renew’d; Of the poor results of all—of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me; Of the empty and useless years of the rest—with the rest me intertwined; The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life? Answer.That you are here—that life exists, and identity; That the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse.
— Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass
To sell your soul is the easiest thing in the world. That's what everybody does every hour of his life. If I asked you to keep your soul - would you understand why that's much harder?
— Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead
All the adversity I've had in my life, all my troubles and obstacles, have strengthened me... You may not realize it when it happens, but a kick in the teeth may be the best thing in the world for you.
— Walt Disney Company
No single event can awaken within us a stranger whose existence we had never suspected. To live is to be slowly born.
— Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Flight to Arras
Souls cross ages like clouds cross skies, an' tho' a cloud's shape nor hue nor size don't stay the same, it's still a cloud an' so is a soul. Who can say where the cloud's blowed from or who the soul'll be 'morrow? Only Sonmi the east an' the west an' the compass an' the atlas, yay, only the atlas o' clouds.
— David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas
If you live each day as it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right
— Steve Jobs
I wish to weepbut sorrow isstupid.I wish to believebut belief is agraveyard.
— Charles Bukowski, What Matters Most is How Well You Walk Through the Fire
A single death is a tragedy
—  a million deaths is a statistic.
...nothing ever happens quickly (except when it does). Nothing is ever, ever easy (except when it is). And, most of all, nothing ever goes perfectly according to plan (except in the movies).
— Ally Carter, Only the Good Spy Young
For everything in this journey of life we are on, there is a right wing and a left wing: for the wing of love there is anger; for the wing of destiny there is fear; for the wing of pain there is healing; for the wing of hurt there is forgiveness; for the wing of pride there is humility; for the wing of giving there is taking; for the wing of tears there is joy; for the wing of rejection there is acceptance; for the wing of judgment there is grace; for the wing of honor there is shame; for the wing of letting go there is the wing of keeping. We can only fly with two wings and two wings can only stay in the air if there is a balance. Two beautiful wings is perfection. There is a generation of people who idealize perfection as the existence of only one of these wings every time. But I see that a bird with one wing is imperfect. An angel with one wing is imperfect. A butterfly with one wing is dead. So this generation of people strive to always cut off the other wing in the hopes of embodying their ideal of perfection, and in doing so, have created a crippled race.
— C. JoyBell C.
The beautiful journey of today can only begin when we learn to let go of yesterday.
— Steve Maraboli, Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience
When you do something noble and beautiful and nobody noticed, do not be sad. For the sun every morning is a beautiful spectacle and yet most of the audience still sleeps.
— John Lennon
Stop doing what is easy. Start doing what is right.
— Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart
Successful people have no fear of failure. But unsuccessful people do. Successful people have the resilience to face up to failure—learn the lessons and adapt from it.
— Roy T. Bennett
It doesn't matter how many people you meet in your life
—  you just need the real ones who accept you for who you are and help you become who you should be.
The worst memories stick with us, while the nice ones always seem to slip through our fingers.
— Rachel Vincent, My Soul to Save
Walk with the dreamers, the believers, the courageous, the cheerful, the planners, the doers, the successful people with their heads in the clouds and their feet on the ground. Let their spirit ignite a fire within you to leave this world better than when you found it...
— Wilferd Peterson
Personally, I don’t like inherently happy people. I don’t trust them. I think there’s something seriously wrong with anyone who isn’t at least a little let down by the world.
— Tiffanie DeBartolo, How to Kill a Rock Star
And therein lies the whole of man's plight. Human time does not turn in a circle
—  it runs ahead in a straight line. That is why man cannot be happy: happiness is the longing for repetition.
How can I go forward when I don't know which way I'm facing?
— John Lennon
To each there comes in their lifetime a special moment when they are figuratively tapped on the shoulder and offered the chance to do a very special thing, unique to them and fitted to their talents. What a tragedy if that moment finds them unprepared or unqualified for that which could have been their finest hour.
— Winston S. Churchill
We should count time by heart-throbs. He most lives,Who thinks most, feels noblest, acts the best.
— Philip James Bailey, Festus: A Poem
Don't own so much clutter that you will be relieved to see your house catch fire.
— Wendell Berry, Farming: a hand book
The hardest thing about the road not taken is that you never know where it might have led.
— Lisa Wingate, A Month of Summer
I am convinced that most people do not grow up...We marry and dare to have children and call that growing up. I think what we do is mostly grow old. We carry accumulation of years in our bodies, and on our faces, but generally our real selves, the children inside, are innocent and shy as magnolias.
— Maya Angelou, Letter to My Daughter
Madame, all stories, if continued far enough, end in death, and he is no true-story teller who would keep that from you.
— Ernest Hemingway
Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language. Do not now look for the answers. They cannot now be given to you because you could not live them. It is a question of experiencing everything. At present you need to live the question. Perhaps you will gradually, without even noticing it, find yourself experiencing the answer, some distant day.
— Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
It's not hard to decide what you want your life to be about. What's hard, she said, is figuring out what you're willing to give up in order to do the things you really care about.
— Shauna Niequist, Bittersweet: Thoughts on Change, Grace, and Learning the Hard Way
Life is filled with unanswered questions, but it is the courage to seek those answers that continues to give meaning to life. You can spend your life wallowing in despair, wondering why you were the one who was led towards the road strewn with pain, or you can be grateful that you are strong enough to survive it.
— J.D. Stroube, Caged by Damnation
If you have a dream, don’t just sit there. Gather courage to believe that you can succeed and leave no stone unturned to make it a reality.
— Roopleen
Dare I say I miss him? I do. I miss him. I still see him in my dreams. They are nightmares mostly, but nightmares tinged with love.I still cannot understand how he could abandon me so unceremoniously, without any sort of goodbye, without looking back even once. That pain is like an axe that chops at my heart.
— Yann Martel, Life of Pi
The mistakes I've made are dead to me. But I can't take back the things I never did.
— Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
Those who hurt others will also hurt themselves.
— Natsuki Takaya
I hate to say it, but shit really does happen. You just have to get over it. Beat the hell out of it by doing things that make you happy.
— J.A. Redmerski, The Edge of Never
I was in the biggest breakdown of my life when I stopped crying long enough to let the words of my epiphany really sink in. That whore, karma, had finally made her way around, and had just bitch-slapped me right across the face. The realization only made me cry harder.
— Jennifer Salaiz
You learn something valuable from all of the significant events and people, but you never touch your true potential until you challenge yourself to go beyond imposed limitations.
— Roy T. Bennett
Make the most of the best and the best of the worst, and keep your standards high. Never settle for anything less than you deserve or are capable of achieving.
— Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart
7 Effective Ways to Make Others Feel Important 1. Use their name.2. Express sincere gratitude.3. Do more listening than talking.4. Talk more about them than about you.5. Be authentically interested.6. Be sincere in your praise.7. Show you care.
— Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart
Beliefs are choices. First you choose your beliefs. Then your beliefs affect your choices.
— Roy T. Bennett
Everyone enjoys being acknowledged and appreciated. Sometimes even the simplest act of gratitude can change someone's entire day. Take the time to recognize and value the people around you and appreciate those who make a difference in your lives.
— Roy T. Bennett
Life is short. Focus on what really matters most. You have to change your priorities over time.
— Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart
Always believe in yourself and always stretch yourself beyond your limits. Your life is worth a lot more than you think because you are capable of accomplishing more than you know. You have more potential than you think, but you will never know your full potential unless you keep challenging yourself and pushing beyond your own self imposed limits.
— Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart
It is a very funny thing that the sleepier you are, the longer you take about getting to bed.
— C.S. Lewis, The Silver Chair
Don't live down to expectations. Go out there and do something remarkable.
— Wendy Wasserstein
It's no good trying to get rid of your own aloneness. You've got to stick to it all your life. Only at times, at times, the gap will be filled in. At times! But you have to wait for the times. Accept your own aloneness and stick to it, all your life. And then accept the times when the gap is filled in, when they come. But they've got to come. You can't force them.
— D.H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley's Lover
Sometimes life is too hard to be alone, and sometimes life is too good to be alone.
— Elizabeth Gilbert, Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage
The aim of life is self-development. To realize one's nature perfectly - that is what each of us is here for.
— Oscar Wilde
You are someone who is different, but who wants to be the same as everyone else. And that in my view is a serious illness. God chose you to be different. Why are you disappointing God with this kind of attitude?
— Paulo Coelho, Veronika Decides to Die
Hard is trying to rebuild yourself, piece by piece, with no instruction book, and no clue as to where all the important bits are supposed to go.
— Nick Hornby, A Long Way Down
I believe that life is a game, that life is a cruel joke, and that life is what happens when you're alive and that you might as well lie back and enjoy it.
— Neil Gaiman, American Gods
We should forgive our enemies, but not before they are hanged
— Heinrich Heine
He had the look of one who had drunk the cup of life and found a dead beetle at the bottom.
— P.G. Wodehouse
Losing your life is not the worst thing that can happen. The worst thing is to lose your reason for living.
— Jo Nesbø
As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light of meaning in the darkness of mere being.
— C.G. Jung
EARLY BIRDOh, if you’re a bird, be an early birdAnd catch the worm for your breakfast plate.If you’re a bird, be an early early bird--But if you’re a worm, sleep late.
— Shel Silverstein, Where the Sidewalk Ends
You must be shapeless, formless, like water. When you pour water in a cup, it becomes the cup. When you pour water in a bottle, it becomes the bottle. When you pour water in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Water can drip and it can crash. Become like water my friend.
— Bruce Lee
Books say: She did this because. Life says: She did this. Books are where things are explained to you; life is where things aren't. I'm not surprised some people prefer books. Books make sense of life. The only problem is that the lives they make sense of are other people's lives, never your own.
— Julian Barnes, Flaubert's Parrot
All the world's a stage and most of us are desperately unrehearsed.
— Seán O'Casey
Life is more or less a lie, but then again, that's exactly the way we want it to be.
— Bob Dylan
If other people do not understand our behavior—so what? Their request that we must only do what they understand is an attempt to dictate to us. If this is being "asocial" or "irrational" in their eyes, so be it. Mostly they resent our freedom and our courage to be ourselves. We owe nobody an explanation or an accounting, as long as our acts do not hurt or infringe on them. How many lives have been ruined by this need to "explain," which usually implies that the explanation be "understood," i.e. approved. Let your deeds be judged, and from your deeds, your real intentions, but know that a free person owes an explanation only to himself—to his reason and his conscience—and to the few who may have a justified claim for explanation.
— Erich Fromm, The Art of Being
Surround Yourself with Positive People Who Believe in Your DreamsDistance yourself from negative people who try to lower your motivation and decrease your ambition. Create space for positive people to come into your life.Surround yourself with positive people who believe in your dreams, encourage your ideas, support your ambitions, and bring out the best in you.
— Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart
You were born to stand out, stop trying to fit in.
— Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart
Stop doing what is easy or popular. Start doing what is right.
— Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart
When you take control of your attitude, you take control of your life.
— Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart
Change may not always bring growth, but there is no growth without change.
— Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart
Enthusiasm can help you find the new doors, but it takes passion to open them. If you have a strong purpose in life, you don't have to be pushed. Your passion will drive you there.
— Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart
Let go of something old that no longer serves you in order to make room for something new.
— Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart
The comfort zone is a psychological state in which one feels familiar, safe, at ease, and secure. You never change your life until you step out of your comfort zone; change begins at the end of your comfort zone.
— Roy T. Bennett
What other people think and say about you is none of your business. The most destructive thing you would ever do is to believe someone else's opinion of you. You have to stop letting other people's opinions control you.
— Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart
Moral wounds have this peculiarity - they may be hidden, but they never close; always painful, always ready to bleed when touched, they remain fresh and open in the heart.
— Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo
Life, although it may only be an accumulation of anguish, is dear to me, and I will defend it.
— Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Frankenstein
The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.
— Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
The Laughing Heartyour life is your lifedon’t let it be clubbed into dank submission.be on the watch.there are ways out.there is a light somewhere.it may not be much light butit beats the darkness.be on the watch.the gods will offer you chances.know them.take them.you can’t beat death butyou can beat death in life, sometimes.and the more often you learn to do it,the more light there will be.your life is your life.know it while you have it.you are marvelousthe gods wait to delightin you.
— Charles Bukowski, Betting on the Muse: Poems and Stories
Those who will not reason, are bigots, those who cannot, are fools, and those who dare not, are slaves.
— George Gordon Byron
Life is nothing without a little chaos to make it interesting.
— Amelia Atwater-Rhodes, Demon in My View
Our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again; we had longer ways to go. But no matter, the road is life
— Jack Kerouac, On the Road
I don't know why we are here, but I'm pretty sure that it is not in order to enjoy ourselves.
— Ludwig Wittgenstein
Writing is a form of therapy; sometimes I wonder how all those who do not write, compose, or paint can manage to escape the madness, melancholia, the panic and fear which is inherent in a human situation.
— Graham Greene, Ways of Escape
The world changes, we do not, therein lies the irony that kills us.
— Anne Rice, Interview with the Vampire
E.L. Doctorow said once said that 'Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.' You don't have to see where you're going, you don't have to see your destination or everything you will pass along the way. You just have to see two or three feet ahead of you. This is right up there with the best advice on writing, or life, I have ever heard.
— Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life
Imagine life is a game in which you are juggling five balls. The balls are called work, family, health, friends, and integrity. And you're keeping all of them in the air. But one day you finally come to understand that work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back. The other four balls...are made of glass. If you drop one of these, it will be irrevocably scuffed, nicked, perhaps even shattered.
— James Patterson, Suzanne's Diary for Nicholas
I think that you’ve got to make something that pleases you and hope that other people feel the same way.
— Thomas Keller
The cost of oblivious daydreaming was always this moment of return, the realignment with what had been before and now seemed a little worse. 
— Ian McEwan, Atonement
If the path before you is clear, you're probably on someone else's.
— Joseph Campbell
The beautiful is always bizarre.
— Charles Baudelaire
One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other.
— Jane Austen, Emma
There was quite a lot of competitiveness about it, with everybody wanting to beat not only cancer itself, but also the other people in the room. Like, I realize that this is irrational, but when they tell you that you have, say, a 20 percent chance of living five years, the math kicks in and you figure that’s one in five . . . so you look around and think, as any healthy person would: I gotta outlast four of these bastards.
— John Green, The Fault in Our Stars
Never forget that anticipation is an important part of life. Work's important, family's important, but without excitement, you have nothing. You're cheating yourself if you refuse to enjoy what's coming.
— Nicholas Sparks, Three Weeks With My Brother
Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
You have wakened not out of sleep, but into a prior dream, and that dream lies within another, and so on, to infinity, which is the number of grains of sand. The path that you are to take is endless, and you will die before you have truly awakened.
— Jorge Luis Borges
It doesn't matter where you are coming from. All that matters is where you are going.
— Brian Tracy
The one who falls and gets up is stronger than the one who never tried. Do not fear failure but rather fear not trying.
— Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart
If I were to wish for anything, I should not wish for wealth and power, but for the passionate sense of the potential, for the eye which, ever young and ardent, sees the possible. Pleasure disappoints, possibility never. And what wine is so sparkling, what so fragrant, what so intoxicating, as possibility!
— Søren Kierkegaard, Either/Or: A Fragment of Life
It can only take a moment to waste the rest of your life.
— Chuck Palahniuk, Snuff
Great leaders can see the greatness in others when they can’t see it themselves and lead them to their highest potential they don’t even know.
— Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart
To learn something new, you need to try new things and not be afraid to be wrong.
— Roy T. Bennett
One of the best ways to influence people is to make them feel important.
— Roy T. Bennett
Shine your light and make a positive impact on the world
—  there is nothing so honorable as helping improve the lives of others.
People were always getting ready for tomorrow. I didn't believe in that. Tomorrow wasn't getting ready for them. It didn't even know they were there.
— Cormac McCarthy, The Road
There will be time, there will be timeTo prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet.
— T.S. Eliot
If you can’t save your own life, is it even worth saving?
— Rainbow Rowell, Eleanor & Park
Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.
— Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy: The Lives and Opinions of the World's Greatest Philosophers
You need to find a way to live your life, that it doesn't make a mockery of your values.
— Bill Ayers
The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself.
— Carl Sagan
Never respond to an angry person with a fiery comeback, even if he deserves it...Don't allow his anger to become your anger.
— Bohdi Sanders, Warrior Wisdom: Ageless Wisdom for the Modern Warrior
He walked out in the gray light and stood and he saw for a brief moment the absolute truth of the world. The cold relentless circling of the intestate earth. Darkness implacable. The blind dogs of the sun in their running. The crushing black vacuum of the universe. And somewhere two hunted animals trembling like ground-foxes in their cover. Borrowed time and borrowed world and borrowed eyes with which to sorrow it.
— Cormac McCarthy, The Road
People who lack the clarity, courage, or determination to follow their own dreams will often find ways to discourage yours. When you change for the better, the people around you will be inspired to change also....but only after doing their best to make you stop. Live your truth and don't EVER stop.
— Steve Maraboli, Life, the Truth, and Being Free
If you don't live a life in service of a greater good, you've gotta at least die a death in service of a greater good, you know? And I fear that I won't get either a life or a death that means anything.
— John Green, The Fault in Our Stars
May Light always surround you;Hope kindle and rebound you.May your Hurts turn to Healing;Your Heart embrace Feeling.May Wounds become Wisdom;Every Kindness a Prism.May Laughter infect you;Your Passion resurrect you.May Goodness inspire your Deepest Desires.Through all that you Reach For, May your arms Never Tire.
— D. Simone
What I'm not sure about, is if our lives have been so different from the lives of the people we save. We all complete. Maybe none of us really understand what we've lived through, or feel we've had enough time.
— Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go
People are strange: They are constantly angered by trivial things, but on a major matter like totally wasting their lives, they hardly seem to notice.
— Charles Bukowski
Dogs are not our whole life, but they make our lives whole.
— Roger A. Caras
But that was the problem with having the answers. It was only after you gave them that you realized they sometimes weren't what people wanted to hear.
— Sarah Dessen, The Truth About Forever
To care about your outward appearance is important, but what’s more important is to have a beautiful soul.
— Roy T. Bennett
How quick come the reasons for approving what we like.
— Jane Austen, Persuasion
When a man learns to love, he must bear the risk of hatred.
— Masashi Kishimoto
One does no question miracles, or complain that they are no constructed perfectly to one's liking.
— Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Princess
You will never follow your own inner voice until you clear up the doubts in your mind.
— Roy T. Bennett
Character — the willingness to accept responsibility for one's own life — is the source from which self-respect springs.
— Joan Didion, On Self-Respect
Happiness was but the occasional episode in a general drama of pain.
— Thomas Hardy, The Mayor of Casterbridge
Life belongs to the living, and he who lives must be prepared for changes.
— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Associate Yourself with People Who Think Positively: Associate yourself with people who think positively. You cannot surround yourself with negative people and expect positive outcomes.
— Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart
Great Leaders Create More LeadersGood leaders have vision and inspire others to help them turn vision into reality. Great leaders create more leaders, not followers. Great leaders have vision, share vision, and inspire others to create their own.
— Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart
This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness.
— Dalai Lama XIV, The Dalai Lama: A Policy of Kindness: An Anthology of Writings By and About the Dalai Lama
After all, what's a life, anyway? We're born, we live a little while, we die.
— E.B. White, Charlotte's Web
To move, to breathe, to fly, to float,To gain all while you give,To roam the roads of lands remote,To travel is to live.
— Hans Christian Andersen, The Fairy Tale of My Life: An Autobiography
When I was little and running on the race track at school, I always stopped and waited for all the other kids so we could run together even though I knew (and everybody else knew) that I could run much faster than all of them! I pretended to read slowly so I could "wait" for everyone else who couldn't read as fast as I could! When my friends were short I pretended that I was short too and if my friend was sad I pretended to be unhappy. I could go on and on about all the ways I have limited myself, my whole life, by "waiting" for people. And the only thing that I've ever received in return is people thinking that they are faster than me, people thinking that they can make me feel bad about myself just because I let them and people thinking that I have to do whatever they say I should do. My mother used to teach me "Cinderella is a perfect example to be" but I have learned that Cinderella can go fuck herself, I'm not waiting for anybody, anymore! I'm going to run as fast as I can, fly as high as I can, I am going to soar and if you want you can come with me! But I'm not waiting for you anymore.
— C. JoyBell C.
The best way to predict your future is to create it.
— Abraham Lincoln
My past has not defined me, destroyed me, deterred me, or defeated me; it has only strengthened me.
— Steve Maraboli, Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience
Just remember that the things you put into your head are there forever, he said. You might want to think about that.You forget some things, dont you?Yes. You forget what you want to remember and you remember what you want to forget.
— Cormac McCarthy, The Road