“It’s impossible,” said pride.
~ unknown
“It’s risky,” said experience.
“It’s pointless,” said reason.
“Give it a try,” whispered the heart.
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Give it a try →
On the shortness of life →
Relax the straitened limits of the time which is allotted me. Show me that the good in life does not depend upon life’s length, but upon the use we make of it; also, that it is possible, or rather usual, for a man who has lived long to have lived too little. Say to me when I lie down to sleep: “You may not wake again!” And when I have waked: “You may not go to sleep again!” Say to me when I go forth from my house: “You may not return!” And when I return: “You may never go forth again!” You are mistaken if you think that only on an ocean voyage there is a very slight space between life and death. No, the distance between is just as narrow everywhere. It is not everywhere that death shows himself so near at hand; yet everywhere he is as near at hand.
~ Seneca
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Never give up →
You just can’t beat a person who never gives up.
~ Babe Ruth
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Imagine where you will be →
Three weeks from now, I will be harvesting my crops.
~ Maximus, in Gladiator, (2000 film)
Imagine where you will be, and it will be so.
If you find yourself alone, riding in the green fields
with the sun on your face, do not be troubled.
For you are in Elysium, and you’re already dead!
Brothers, what we do in life… echoes in eternity.
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Not going to stay →
The first step towards getting somewhere is to decide that you are not going to stay where you are.
~ unknown
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A responsibility to light →
Feel all the things. Feel the hard things. The inexplicable things, the things that make you disavow humanity’s capacity for redemption. Feel all the maddening paradoxes. Feel overwhelmed, crazy. Feel uncertain. Feel angry. Feel afraid. Feel powerless. Feel frozen. And then FOCUS.
~ Wendy MacNaughton, and Courtney Martin
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Don’t underestimate yourself →
The size of your problems is nothing compared with your ability to solve them. Don’t overestimate your problems, and underestimate yourself.
~ unknown
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The myth of the bloodless calling →
I don’t care how much you say you love your work. If your vision is bold enough, there will soon be a point where your passion is used up before the work ends. Enjoyment does not carry you far enough when you are sailing epic waters.
~ Bryan Ward
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5,000 Steps to Success →
If you dream of something worth doing and then simply go to work on it and don’t think anything of personalities, or emotional conflicts, or of money, or of family distractions; if you just think of, detail by detail, what you have to do next, it is a wonderful dream even if the end is a long way off, for there are about five thousand steps to be taken before we realize it; and start making the first ten, and stay making twenty after, it is amazing how quickly you get through those five thousand steps.
~ Edwin Land
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Insane courage →
You know, sometimes all you need is twenty seconds of insane courage. Just literally twenty seconds of just embarrassing bravery. And I promise you, something great will come of it.
~ Benjamin Mee, in We Bought a Zoo, (2011 film)
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