Consider these little-known quotes. Write them down in your personal journals. Ponder them one by one. Contemplate each word and let the message you see develop over time. Take one quote and with patience and expectation discover what these words mean to you.
The SEAL Code
Here is an excerpt from the credo of the Navy SEALs: “I will never quit. I persevere and thrive on adversity. My Nation expects me to be physically and mentally stronger than my enemies. If knocked down, I will get back up, every time. I will draw on every remaining ounce of strength to protect my teammates and to accomplish our mission. I am never out of the fight.”
“The final forming of a person’s character lies in their own hands.” ~Anne Frank
“We meet no ordinary people in our lives.” ~C.S. Lewis
“The last of human freedoms—the ability to choose one’s attitude in a given set of circumstances.” ~Viktor E. Frankl
“The soul is stronger than its surroundings.” ~William James
“Know yourself.” ~Greek Proverb
“I believe every human has a finite number of heartbeats. I don’t intend to waste any of mine.” ~Neil Armstrong
“Life was meant to be lived, and curiosity must be kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life.” ~Eleanor Roosevelt
“To be awake is to be alive.” ~Henry David Thoreau
“The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled.” ~Plutarch
It’s the little details that are vital. Little things make big things happen.” ~John Wooden
“History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.” ~Winston Churchill
“There is nothing brilliant nor outstanding in my record, except perhaps this one thing: I do the things that I believe ought to be done… And when I wake up my mind to do a thing, I act.” ~Theodore Roosevelt
“Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.” ~Thomas A. Edison
“Mystery creates wonder and wonder is the basis of man’s desire to understand.” ~Neil Armstrong
“If you want to be happy, be.” ~Leo Tolstoy
“If we all did the things we are capable of, we would literally astound ourselves.” ~Thomas Edison
“Optimism is true moral courage.” ~Ernest Shackleton
“Friends are as companions on a journey, who ought to aid each other to persevere in the road to a happier life.” ~Pythagoras
“The soul is stronger than its surroundings.” ~William James
“So much of our time is spent in preparation, so much in routine and so much in retrospect, that the amount of each person’s genius is confined to a very few hours.” ~Ralph Waldo Emerson
“The secret to life is meaningless unless you discover it yourself.” ~W. Somerset Maugham
“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” ~Viktor E. Frankl
“We build too many walls and not enough bridges.” ~Isaac Newton
“It’s the little details that are vital. Little things make big things happen.” ~John Wooden
“Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.” ~Thomas A. Edison
“Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.” ~T. S. Eliot
“He who would learn to fly one day must first learn to stand and walk and run and climb and dance; one cannot fly into flying.” ~Friedrich Nietzsche
“The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision.” ~Helen Keller
“My thoughts disentangle themselves as they pass through my lips and fingertips.” ~Dawson Trotman
“It had long since come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things.” ~Leonardo da Vinci
“Before anything else, preparation is the key to success.” ~Alexander Graham Bell
“What do I mean by concentration? I mean focusing totally on the business at hand and commanding your body to do exactly what you want it to do.” ~Arnold Palmer
“I was raised to face any challenge.” ~Louis Zamperini
“Each life is made up of mistakes and learning, waiting and growing, practicing patience and being persistent.” ~Billy Graham
“If you want to increase your success rate, double your failure rate.” ~Thomas J. Watson
“Courage is the price that life exacts for granting peace.” ~Amelia Earhart
“He who would learn to fly one day must first learn to stand and walk and run and climb and dance; one cannot fly into flying.” ~Friedrich Nietzsche
“The last of human freedoms—the ability to choose one’s attitude in a given set of circumstances.” ~Viktor E. Frankl
“When you do the common things in life in an uncommon way, you will command the attention of the world.” ~George Washington Carver
“It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light.” ~Aristotle
“You will never do anything in this world without courage. It is the greatest quality of the mind next to honor.” ~Aristotle
“History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.” ~Winston Churchill
“Mystery creates wonder and wonder is the basis of man’s desire to understand.” ~Neil Armstrong
“A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history.” ~Mahatma Gandhi
“Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal.” ~Martin Luther King, Jr.
“The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another.” ~William James
“God allows us to experience the low points of life in order to teach us lessons that we could learn in no other way.” ~C.S. Lewis
“Peace begins with a smile.” ~Mother Teresa
“From caring comes courage.” ~Lao Tzu
Michael Oher: “I’ve never had one before.”
Leigh Anne Tuohy: “What? A room to yourself?”
Michael Oher: “A bed.”
~Blindside
“I am still learning.” ~Michelangelo
“Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.” ~Albert Einstein
“Learning never exhausts the mind.” ~Leonardo da Vinci
“Each life is made up of mistakes and learning, waiting and growing, practicing patience and being persistent.” ~Billy Graham
“Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school.” ~Albert Einstein
“Tomorrow hopes we have learned something from yesterday.” ~John Wayne
“I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.” ~Pablo Picasso
“A man only learns in two ways, one by reading, and the other by association with smarter people.” ~Will Rogers
“I really like reading books.” ~Dale Carnegie
“Think, think, think.” ~A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh
“Change happens in an instant. It happens the moment you DECIDE to change.” ~ Allyson Lewis
I wrote this sentence in 2006. It has been read by tens of thousands of people and shared over and over through social media. Why did I choose my own quote to conclude this article? Because this quote is a tiny story of my life. This is my story shared through words that shout to my soul. Anne Frank’s quote shown inside the beautiful image of ice and light states, “Think of all the beauty still left around you and BE HAPPY.” Obstacles and difficult circumstances regularly slam unexpectedly into our lives. Staring into hardship and chaos, I was faced with a decision. I could choose hardship or in an instant I could decide to change. Many of the quotes above have provided people with continual growth and inspiration. Life changes when you decide to change. I choose to BE HAPPY! Featured photo credit: Aamir Suhail via unsplash.com
