Here’s the issue, it’s hard to stay inspired. It’s tough to get yourself to overcome lazy and idle habits. It’s tough to evaluate things from new perspectives. Your body is programmed to maintain homeostasis from top to bottom, and this permeates our behaviors, thought patterns, and habit structures. However, creating a life to be proud of requires going beyond this. It is what’s required to increase the quality of your life where you’re living creatively and not settling for being someone who you know is below your potential.
Quotes from inspired people are an awesome thing and one of the ‘tools’ you can use to create yourself and your life. I’m always on the look out for great quotes and you should be too. They inspire, they motivate, they make you reflect and evaluate. There is nothing like awesome quotes. Here is a quick list of a few of my heroes and some top quotes from them. I’m sure you’ll notice my heroes come from multiple disciplines and are seemingly nothing alike. In spite of this surface level evaluation, each of them brings expertise and insight that I love and gain personal strength and growth through.
Arnold Schwarzenegger
“For me life is continuously being hungry. The meaning of life is not simply to exist, to survive, but to move ahead, to go up, to achieve, to conquer.” -Arnold Schwarzenegger
“Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strengths. When you go through hardships and decide not to surrender, that is strength.” -Arnold Schwarzenegger
“Everybody pities the weak; jealousy you have to earn.” -Arnold Schwarzenegger
Eckhart Tolle
“The great arises out of small things that are honored and cared for. Everybody’s life really consists of small things. Greatness is a mental abstraction and a favorite fantasy of the ego. The paradox is that the foundation for greatness is the honoring of small things of the present moment instead of pursuing the idea of greatness.” -Eckhart Tolle
To love is to recognize yourself in another. The others “otherness” then stands revealed as an illusion pertaining to the purely human realm, the realm of form. -Eckhart Tolle
“The brain does not create consciousness, but consciousness created the brain.” -Eckhart Tolle
Michael Jordan
“I never looked at the consequences of missing a big shot… when you think about the consequences you always think of a negative result.” -Michael Jordan
“I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life and that is why I succeed.” -Michael Jordan (source video)
“I play to win, whether during practice or a real game. And I will not let anything get in the way of me and my competitive enthusiasm to win.” -Michael Jordan
“If you’re trying to achieve, there will be roadblocks. I’ve had them; everybody has had them. But obstacles don’t have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don’t turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it.” -Michael Jordan
George Carlin
“I love and treasure the individual, as I meet them. I loath and despise the groups they identify with and belong to.” -George Carlin
“Thou shalt keep thy religion to thyself.” -George Carlin
“Religion has convinced people that there’s an invisible man…living in the sky, who watches everything you do every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a list of ten specific things he doesn’t want you to do. And if you do any of these things, he will send you to a special place, of burning and fire and smoke and torture and anguish for you to live forever, and suffer and burn and scream until the end of time. But he loves you. He loves you and he needs money.” -George Carlin (source video)
“If it’s true that our species is alone in the universe, then I’d have to say that the universe aimed rather low and settled for very little.” -George Carlin
“Fighting for peace is like screwing for virginity.” -George Carlin
“People who say they don’t care what people think are usually desperate to have people think they don’t care what people think.” -George Carlin
James Allen
“Dream lofty dreams, and as you dream, so you shall become. Your vision is the promise of what you shall one day be: your ideal is the prophecy of what you shall at last unveil.” -James Allen
“The true life, the blessed life, the life that is not tormented with passions and pains, is reached only through sacrifice, not necessarily the sacrifice of outward things, but the sacrifice of the inward errors and defilement’s, for it is these, and these only, which bring misery into life. It is not the good and true that needs to be sacrificed but the evil and false; therefore all sacrifice is ultimately gain, and there is no essential loss.” -James Allen
“He who would accomplish little must sacrifice little; he who would achieve much must sacrifice much; he who would attain highly must sacrifice greatly.” -James Allen
Tony Robbins
“A real decision is measured by the fact that you’ve taken a new action. If there’s no action, you haven’t truly decided.” -Tony Robbins
“Beliefs have the power to create and the power to destroy. Human beings have the awesome ability to take any experience of their lives and create a meaning that disempowers them or one that can literally save their lives.” -Tony Robbins
“How am I going to live today in order to create the tomorrow I’m committed to?” -Tony Robbins
“I challenge you to make your life a masterpiece. I challenge you to join the ranks of those people who live what they teach, who walk their talk.” -Tony Robbins
“In essence, if we want to direct our lives, we must take control of our consistent actions. It’s not what we do once in a while that shapes our lives, but what we do consistently.” -Tony Robbins
“It is not what we get. But who we become, what we contribute… that gives meaning to our lives.” -Tony Robbins
I’m curious, what are some of your favorite quotes?
