No citizen has a right to be an amateur in the matter of physical training … what a disgrace it is for a man to grow old without ever seeing the beauty and strength of which is body is capable.
~ Socrates
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Quotes
Give it a try
“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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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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Stop hoarding your best
Creative hoarding is different than other kinds of hoarding. You’re not withholding your treasure from others, you’re withholding it from yourself. You are denying yourself permission to take the best of what you have, here and now, and make it manifest in the world.
~ Bryan Ward
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How the hammer fails you
Wherever your life has locked you in, wherever force has failed you, put down the hammer: pick up the crowbar.
~ Bryan Ward
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Destiny is unavoidable
Our destiny is frequently met in the very paths we take to avoid it.
~ Jean de La Fontaine
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1 “realistic” belief
This growing discontent is a warning: a message to stop dissipating your powers in low-level problem solving, to lift your aim and seek better, higher-order problems: ones more lucrative, more alluring… ones better suited to your highest gifts.
~ Bryan Ward
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How art can change your life
No, I don’t think you’re born with it. You have to hear stories and you have to live stories. You have to have a bunch of experiences and be able to say ‘Here’s something that happened to me yesterday….’ And if you can make people laugh by telling them what happened to you, then you are telling the story well. So that’s what I learned in improv.
~ Bill Murray
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Now or never
Sometimes there is no next time, no second chance, no time out. Sometimes it is now or never.
~ unknown
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View from the top
When everything feels like an uphill struggle, just think of the view from the top.
~ unknown
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Curious children
Never cease to stand like curious children before the great mystery into which we were born.
~ Albert Einstein
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Thoughts manifest
The thought manifests the word;
~ Juan Mascaro
The word manifests the deed;
The deed develops into habit;
And habit hardens into character;
So watch the thought and its ways with care.
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