2009 Favorite Quotes

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ON FAILURE*

I would rather fail in a cause that will ultimately succeed
than succeed in a cause that will ultimately fail.
~ Woodrow Wilson (posted 2/25/10)

Success is not final, failure is not fatal:
it is the courage to continue that counts.
~ Winston Churchill (posted 2/24/10)

Failure is instructive. The person who really
thinks learns quite as much from his
failures as from his successes.
~ John Dewey (posted 02/23/10)

A man can fail many times, but he isn’t a failure
until he begins to blame somebody else.
~ John Burroughs (posted 01/19/10)

When all is said and done, success without
happiness is the worst kind of failure.
~ Louis Binstock (posted 02/18/10)

We fall forward to succeed.
~ Mary Kay Ash (posted 02/15/10)

“Curiosity is the most powerful thing you own,”
he said. “Don’t put limitations on yourself.
Other people will do that for you…
failure has to be an option in art
and exploration because
it’s a leap of faith.
“In whatever you’re doing,
failure is an option,
but fear is not.”
~James Cameron,
“Avatar” creator (posted 02/14/10)

What would you do if you knew you could not fail?
~ Robert Schuller (posted 02/12/10)

There is no comparison between that which is lost
by not succeeding and that lost by not trying.
~ Francis Bacon (posted 02/11/10)

Winners lose more than losers.
~ Terry Paulson (posted 02/10/10)

Failure is only the opportunity to
begin again more intelligently.
~Henry Ford (posted 02/08/10)

A garden is always a series of losses set
against a few triumphs, like life itself.
~ May Sarton (posted 02/05/10)

There are no failures – just experiences
and your reactions to them
~ Tom Krause (posted 02/04/10)

The greatest barrier to success is the fear of failure.
~ Sven Goran Eriksson (posted 02/03/10)

If you are not big enough to lose,
you are not big enough to win
~ Walter Reuther (posted 02/02/10)

There is no failure except in no longer trying.
~ Elbert Hubbard (posted 01/22/10)

I have missed more than 9000 shots in my career.
I have lost almost 300 games. On 26 occasions
I have been entrusted to take the game winning shot… and missed.
And I have failed over and over and over again in my life.
And that is why I succeed.
~ Michael Jordan (posted 01/19/10)

*A front desk receptionist shared with me about her husband’s love for bonsai. He had lost some bonsai over the years to weather up north. Since moving to Florida, he has lost a lot more due to the warmer climate. But his 30-year love for bonsai is as strong as ever. I too like bonsai. I quit after I lost a few. I was afraid to lose another.

ON TRUE SUCCESS

“Don’t aim for success if you want it;
just do what you love and believe in, and it will come naturally.”
~ David Frost (posted 12/04/09)

“Success builds character, failure reveals it”
~ Dave Checkett (posted 12/02/09)

“God doesn’t require us to succeed;
he only requires that you try”
~ Mother Teresa (posted 11/17/09)

“If there is any one secret of success,
it lies in the ability to get the other person’s
point of view and see things from that person’s
angle as well as from your own.”
~ Henry Ford (posted 11/10/09)

“Success is doing ordinary things
extraordinarily well.”
~ Jim Rohn (posted 11/02/09)

“Success is 99 percent failure”
~ Soichiro Honda (posted 10/21/09)

“Success is not the key to happiness.
Happiness is the key to success.
If you love what you are doing,
you will be successful.”
~ Herman Cain (posted 10/20/09)

ON GENTLE LEADERSHIP

Thaw with her gentle persuasion is more
powerful than Thor with his hammer.
The one melts, the other breaks into pieces.
~ Henry David Thoreau (posted 10/06/09)

“Nature gives to every time and season some beauties of its own;
and from morning to night, as from the cradle to the grave,
it is but a succession of changes so gentle and
easy that we can scarcely
mark their progress.”
~ Charles Dickens (posted 10/05/09)

“In a gentle way, you can shake the world.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi (posted 10/02/09)

“Through patience a ruler can be persuaded,
and a gentle tongue can break a bone.”
~ Proverbs 25:15 (posted 10/01/09)

“Only the weak are cruel. Gentleness can
only be expected from the strong.”
~ Leo F. Buscaglia (posted 09/30/09)

“The finest workers in stone are not copper
or steel tools, but the gentle touches
of air and water working at their
leisure with a liberal
allowance of time.”
~ Henry David Thoreau (posted 09/24/09)

“Nothing is so strong as gentleness,
nothing so gentle as real strength”
~ St. Francis de Sales (posted 09/14/09)

QUOTE: LIFE’S PLEASURES

“Pleasure is very seldom found where it is sought.
Our brightest blazes are commonly kindled
by unexpected sparks. ”
~ Samuel Johnson (posted 09/10/09)

“Variety of mere nothings gives more pleasure
than uniformity of something.”
~ Jean Paul (posted 09/08/09)

“The greatest pleasure I know is to do a good action
by stealth and have it found out by accident.”
~ Charles Lamb (posted 09/01/09)

“True artists are almost the only men
who do their work for pleasure.”
~ Auguste Rodin (posted 08/28/09)

“Never permit a dichotomy to rule your life,
a dichotomy in which you hate what you do
so you can have pleasure in your spare
time. Look for a situation in which
your work will give you as much
happiness as your spare time.”
~ Pablo Picasso (posted 08/26/09)

“If you’re interested in ‘balancing’ work and pleasure,
stop trying to balance them. Instead make
your work more pleasurable.”
~ Donald Trump (posted 08/26/09)

“Simple pleasures are always the
last refuge of the complex”
~ Oscar Wilde (posted 08/21/09)

“He who eats with most pleasure is
he who least requires sauce”
~ Xenophon (posted 08/20/09)

“The pleasure of life is according to the man who lives it,
and not according to the work or the place”
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson (posted 08/19/09)

“Most men pursue pleasure with such
breathless haste that they hurry past it.”
~ Soren Kierkegaard (posted 08/18/09)

“No one can read with profit that which he
cannot learn to read with pleasure.”
~ Thomas Hardy (posted 08/17/09)

“Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.”
~ Aristotle (posted 08/13/09)

“Think big thoughts but relish small pleasures.”
~ H. Jackson Brown, Jr (posted 08/12/09)

QUOTES ON PRACTICE**

“For every pass I caught in a game,
I caught a thousand in practice.”
~ Don Hutson (posted August 9, 2009)

“We are what we repeatedly do.
Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”
~ Aristotle (posted July 29, 2009)

“In theory there is no difference between theory and practice.
In practice there is.”
~ Yogi Berra (posted July 24, 2009)

“The formula for success is simple:
practice and concentration then
more practice and more concentration.”
~ Babe Didrikson (posted on July 21, 2009)

“It’s not necessarily the amount of
time you spend at practice that counts;
it’s what you put into the practice.”
~ Eric Lindros (posted July 20, 2009)

“If I don’t practice one day, I know it;
two days, the critics know it;
three days, the public knows it. ”
~ Jascha Heifetz (posted July 15, 2009)

“Failure happens all the time. It happens
every day in practice. What makes
you better is how you react to it.
~ Mia Hamm (posted July 12, 2009)

“An inventor fails 999 times, and if he succeeds once, he’s in.
He treats his failures simply as practice shots.”
~ Charles Kettering (posted July 11, 2009)

“Practice does not make perfect.
Only perfect practice makes perfect.”
~ Vince Lombardi (posted July 10, 2009)

“Everything is practice.”
~ Pele (posted July 8, 2009)

“If you want to shine, put in 10,000 hours.”
~ Malcolm Gladwell (posted July 7, 2009)

**In his book “Outliers”, the research by by Malcolm Gladwell affirms what I believe about practice and preparation with respect to success. Intelligence and talents have their place. But the nurturing process is often the tipping point.

ON DO IT NOW*

“How wonderful it is that nobody needs to wait
a single moment before starting
to improve the world.”
~ Anne Frank (posted June 30, 2009)

“Things may come to those who wait,
but only the things left by those who hustle. ”
~ Abraham Lincoln (posted June 29, 2009)

‘Nothing would be done at all if one
waited until one could do it so well
that no one could find fault with it.”
~ John Henry Newman (posted June 26, 2009)

“Don’t wait until everything is just right.
It will never be perfect. There will always be
challenges, obstacles and less than perfect conditions.
So what. Get started now. With each step you take, you will
grow stronger and stronger, more and more skilled, more
and more self-confident and more and more successful.”
~ Mark Hansen (posted June 25, 2009)

“If you wait until all the lights are “green”
before you leave home, you’ll never
get started on your trip to the top.”
~ Zig Ziglar (posted June 24, 2009)

“In a moment of decision,
the best thing you can do is the right thing to do.
The worst thing you can do is nothing.”
~ Theodore Roosevelt (posted June 23, 2009)

“Those who make the worst use of their time
are the first to complain of its shortness.”
~ Jean de La Bruyère (posted June 19, 2009)

“You will never find time for anything.
If you want time you must make it.”
~ Charles Buxton (posted June 16, 2009)

“Putting off an easy thing makes it hard,
and putting off a hard one makes it impossible.”
~ George Lonmer (posted June 12, 2009)

“What may be done at any time
will be done at no time.”
~ Scottish Proverb (posted June 11, 2009)

“To think too long about doing a thing often becomes its undoing. ”
~ Eva Young (posted June 10, 2009)

“Do it now! can affect every phase of your life.
It can help you do the things you should do but
don’t feel like doing. It can keep you from procrastinating
when an unpleasant duty faces you. But it can also help you
do those things that you want to do. It helps you seize those
precious moments that, if lost, may never be retrieved.”
~Napoleon Hill (posted June 9, 2009)

*The passing of our family friend, Hilda Juhl, had a great impact on me. She is the most Christlike and most positive person I have ever met. She told me and Amy at many occasions that she enjoyed my singing very much and would like to hear them again even though we have moved away. I wanted to record some favorite hymns for her but took too long to do them. A month before her passing, I told myself I should do it and started recording a couple. But it was too late…

ON RISKS*

“When you cannot make up your mind
which of two evenly balanced courses of
action you should take – choose the bolder.”
~ William Joseph Slim (posted 05/04/09)

“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I took
the one less traveled by, and that has
made all the difference.”
~ Robert Frost (posted 04/28/09)

“I’ve found that luck is quite predictable.
If you want more luck, take more chances.
Be more active. Show up more often.”
~ Brian Tracy (posted 04/13/09)

“The only time you run out of chances
is when you stop taking them”.
~ Author Unknown (posted 04/10/09)

“Never let the odds keep you from doing
what you know in your heart
you were meant to do.”
~ Jackson Brown (posted 04/08/09)

“We must walk consciously only part way
toward our goal and then leap in the
dark to our success.”
~ Henry David Thoreau (posted 04/07/09)

“The more you seek security, the less of
it you have. But the more you seek
opportunity, the more likely it is
that you will achieve the
security that
you desire.”
~ Brian Tracy (posted 03/31/09)

“There is as much risk in doing nothing
as in doing something.”
~ Trammell Crow (posted 03/30/09)

“Only those who risk going too far can
possibly find out how far they can go.”
~ T. S. Eliot (posted 03/27/09)

“Twenty years from now you will be
more disappointed by the things
that you didn’t do than by the
ones you did so.
So throw off the bowlines.
Sail away from the safe harbor.
Catch the trade winds in your sails.
Explore. Dream. Discover.”
~ Mark Twain (posted 03/25/09)

“If you don’t risk anything,
you risk even more.”
~ Erica Jong (posted 03/24/09)

“A ship in harbor is safe – but
that is not what ships are for.”
~ John A. Shedd (posted 03/23/09)

“You’ll always miss 100% of
the shots you don’t take.”
~ Wayne Gretzky (posted 03/20/09)

“There is no security on
this earth. Only opportunity.”
~ Douglas MacArthur (posted 03/17/07)

*I’m reading a book by Dr. Ben Carson on “Taking Risks”. Over the years, I have taken my fair share of risks. Generally, they are based on what I believe I need to do. I tend to see risks as opportunities that I can’t afford not to seize.

HEALTH*

“Take care of your body.
It’s the only place you have to live.”
~ Jim Rohn (posted 03/06/09)

“Most people don’t have a problem going
on a diet. Their problem is being
consistent on their diet.
~ Karen Sessions (posted 03/05/09)

“To eat is a necessity,
but to eat intelligently is an art.”
~ La Rochefoucauld (posted 03/04/09)

“To lengthen thy life, lessen thy meals.”
~ Benjamin Franklin (posted 02/27/09)

“A vigorous five-mile walk will do more
good for an unhappy but otherwise
healthy adult than all the medicine
and psychology in the world.”
~ Paul Dudley White (posted 02/23/09)

“Exercise is labor without weariness.”
~ Samuel Johnson (posted 02/20/09)

“If the doctors of today do not become the nutritionists of tomorrow, then the nutritionists of today will become the doctors of tomorrow.”
~Rockefeller Institute of Medicine research
(posted 02/12/09)

“We don’t have to keep God’s laws
(of our body), we get to”.**
~ Dr. George Guthrie (posted 02/10/09)
**The last line of his sermon at the Forest Lake Church,
culminating a weeklong Festival of Health

Those who think they have not time
for bodily exercise will sooner or
later have to find time for illness.”
~ Edward Stanley (posted 02/05/09)

He who has health has hope;
and he who has hope has everything.”
~ Arabic Proverb (posted 02/04/09)

“The part can never be well
unless the whole is well.”
~ Plato (posted 02/02/09)

“He who takes medicine and neglects
to diet wastes the skill of his doctors.” 
~ Chinese Proverb (posted 02/02/09)

“Health is not a condition
of matter, but of Mind.”
~ Mary Baker Eddy (posted 01/29/09)

“The first wealth is health.”
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, one of my favorite American Lit writers (posted 01/27/09)

*I started in the new year jog/walk on the average of an hour a day. It’s not only good for my health but also a great stress reliever. I hope to run at least one marathon in the near future. It’s important for me to make health an absolute priority from now on. I don’t think I have a choice at my age. I can give my best only if I have the best of health.

Happy New Year!

“The journey of a thousand miles
begins with one step.”
~ Lao Tzu (posted Jan 19, 2009)

“One step must start each journey.”
~ Anonymous (posted Jan 16, 2009)

“For last year’s words belong
to last year’s language
And next year’s words await another voice.
And to make an end is to make a beginning.”
~ T.S. Eliot (posted Jan 14, 2008)

“You’ll accomplish more if you start now.”
~ From a Fortune Cookie (posted Jan 12, 2009)

“All glory comes from daring to begin.”
~ Eugene Ware (posted Jan 09, 2009)

“We need a new beginning
and not an old ending.”
~ Sergey Lavrov (posted Jan 08, 2009)

“Making the beginning is
one third of the work.”
~ Irish Proverb (posted Jan 07, 2009)

“Nobody can go back and start a new beginning,
but anyone can start today and make a new ending.”
~ Maria Robinson (posted Jan 02, 2009)

“One resolution I have made, and try always to keep, is this:
To rise above the little things.”
~ John Burroughs (posted Jan 01, 2009)

“I think in terms of the day’s
resolutions, not the year’s.”
~ Henry Moore (posted Dec 31, 2008)

“Never tell your resolution beforehand,
or it’s twice as onerous a duty.”
~ John Selden (posted Dec 30, 2008)

“Many people look forward to the new year
for a new start on old habits.”
~ Author unknown (posted Dec 29, 2008)