Useless Quotes

It is useless for us to attempt to reason a man
out of a thing he has never been reasoned into.
- Jonathan Swift

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Thank You,
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

During his training, a baseball player strives
to make each swing better than the last.
The repetition of a faulty swing would be worse than useless.
It would ingrain bad habits.
The same is true of emotional responses.
If we allow ourselves to continue to have the same angry responses,
we just entrench our anger habit.
But if we strive - through consciousness, visualization, and coaching -
to moderate our anger response,
over time, we can train ourselves to respond
to events as we choose - without anger.
You can't magically be free from anger tomorrow,
but you can put yourself on your own training program
that will reduce the frequency and intensity
of your anger response day by day, year by year.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

In preparing for battle I have always found that
plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

On His Blindness:
When I consider how my light is spent
Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,
And that one Talent which is death to hide
Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest He returning chide,
"Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?"
I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, "God doth not need
Either man's work or his own gifts. Who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state
Is kingly: thousands at his bidding speed,
And post o'er land and ocean without rest;
They also serve who only stand and wait.
- John Milton (1608-1674)

With realization of one's own potential and
self-confidence in one's ability,
one can build a better world.
- Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama

You are to have implicit confidence in your own ability,
knowing that it is the nature of thought
to externalize itself in your health and affairs,
knowing that you are the thinker.
- Ernest Holmes

Maturity is the ability to do a job
whether or not you are supervised,
to carry money without spending it,
and to bear an injustice without wanting to get even.
- Ann Landers

The only good luck many great men ever had was
being born with the ability and determination to overcome bad luck.
- Channing Pollock

The greatest weapon against stress
is our ability to choose one thought over another.
- William James

Each of us is of infinite value,
and each of us has the ability to make
a profound difference in the lives we touch.
We leave our most profoundly positive impact
on those around us by the nature of our lives
and the example we set -
not by how busy we are,
or how important we believe we are.
Setting an example of being loving, relaxed and joyful,
regardless of external circumstances,
is a great legacy for our family and for the world.
Self importance - ego - is not a path to happiness.
Focusing one's whole life on responsibilities,
without taking time for self-renewal and play,
abandons the joy and the true value of life.
I want my tombstone to read, "Inspired others,"
rather than, "Never missed a day at the office."
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

I offer my body, my mind
and any ability that I posses,
to be used by Thee, O Infinite Creator,
in whatever way Thou dost choose
to express Thyself through me.
I know that all work is Thy work,
and that no task is too difficult
or too menial when offered
to Thee in loving service.
- Paramahansa Yogananda

Believe in yourself,
in your vision for your future
and in your ability to take a small step
each day toward achieving your vision.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The ability to be in the present moment
is a major component of mental wellness.
- Abraham Maslow

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

Tact is the ability to describe others as they see themselves.
- Abraham Lincoln

You will always have habits -
things you do regularly and without conscious thought -
but you do have the ability to CHOOSE your habits.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Attention is the ability we have to discriminate
and to focus only on that which we want to perceive.
- don Miguel Ruiz

It's not a mess.
It's a physical manifestation of
a wonderfully complex ability to
assess and compartmentalize information.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

Everybody is a genius.
But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree,
it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.
- Albert Einstein

Most people consider the course of events as natural and inevitable.
They little know what radical change are possible through prayer.
Every morning I offer my body, my mind and any ability that I posses,
to be used by Thee, O infinite creator,
in whatever way Thou dost choose to express Thyself through me.
I know that all work is Thy work, and that no task is too difficult
or too menial when offered to Thee in loving service.
- Paramahansa Yogananda

Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision.
The ability to direct individual accomplishments
toward organizational objectives.
It is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results.
- Andrew Carnegie

All endeavor calls for the ability
to tramp the last mile,
shape the last plan, endure the last hours toil.
The fight to the finish spirit is the one...
characteristic we must posses
if we are to face the future as finishers.
- Henry David Thoreau

Courage is not the lack of fear but the ability to face it.
- John B. Putnam Jr.

I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability
of man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor.
- Henry David Thoreau

One cannot have wisdom without perspective,
but once gaining perspective, one attains wisdom.
Wisdom is the ability to view every situation
as each person who is in any way affected
by that situation might view it.
Wisdom benefits from having a knowledge of history,
and therefore a historical perspective,
as well from as having the perspective of imagination -
the realm of the what-might-be
inhabited by futurists and science-fiction writers.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

If money is your hope for independence,
you will never have it.
The only real security that
a man can have in this world
is a reserve of knowledge,
experience and ability.
- Henry Ford

I appreciate the boldness of gratitude in the quiet, unspoken depths
and its ability to buoy another by being articulated.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

A politician needs the ability to
foretell what is going to happen
tomorrow, next week, next month, and next year.
And to have the ability afterwards
to explain why it didn't happen.
- Winston Churchill

If men can develop weapons that are so terrifying
as to make the thought of global war
include almost a sentence for suicide,
you would think that man's intelligence and his comprehension...
would include also his ability to find a peaceful solution.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

Surely God would not have created such a being as man,
with an ability to grasp the infinite,
to exist only for a day!
No, no, man was made for immortality.
- Abraham Lincoln

Dare to dream of your great success.
Become intimate with those things
which deeply motivate you
and regularly work toward
the realization of that mission.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

Our journey into consciousness of wealth
begins with the realization that we have already arrived!
- Michael Bernard Beckwith

There is joy in work.
There is no happiness except in the realization
that we have accomplished something.
- Henry Ford

The meaning of our self is not to be found
in its separateness from God and others,
but in the ceaseless realization of yoga, of union.
- Rabindranath Tagore

I dream of the realization of the unity of Africa,
whereby its leaders combine in their efforts
to solve the problems of this continent.
I dream of our vast deserts, of our forests,
of all our great wildernesses.
- Nelson Mandela

Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.
- Robert F. Kennedy

To dare is to lose one's footing momentarily.
Not to dare is to lose oneself.
- Soren Kierkegaard

This is no time for ease and comfort.
It is time to dare and endure.
- Winston Churchill

With courage, you will dare to take risks,
have the strength to be compassionate,
and the wisdom to be humble.
Courage is the foundation of integrity.
- Keshavan Nair

It is not because life is difficult
that we do not dare.
Life is difficult
because we do not dare.
- Seneca

Take a chance! All life is a chance.
The man who goes farthest is generally
the one who is willing to do and dare.
- Dale Carnegie

Friendship must dare to risk, or it's not friendship.
- Captain Jean-Luc Picard in the TV show Star Trek: The Next Generation

Let's have faith that right makes might;
and in that faith let us, to the end,
dare to do our duty as we understand it.
- Abraham Lincoln

What is a friend? I will tell you ...
it is someone with whom you dare to be yourself.
- Frank Crane

If you think you are beaten, you are.
If you think you dare not, you don't.
If you'd like to win, but think you can't
It's almost a cinch you won't.
Life's battles don't always go to the stronger or faster man;
But soon or late the man who wins is the one who thinks he can.
- Anonymous

Far better is it to dare mighty things,
to win glorious triumphs,
even though chequered by failure,
than to take rank with those poor spirits
who neither enjoy much nor suffer much,
because they live in the grey twilight
that knows not victory or defeat.
- Theodore Roosevelt

Here in America we are descended in blood
and in spirit from revolutionists and rebels.
Men and women who dare to dissent from accepted doctrine.
As their heirs, may we never confuse
honest dissent with disloyal subversion.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

I hope we shall crush in its birth
the aristocracy of our monied corporations
which dare already to challenge our government
to a trial by strength,
and bid defiance to the laws of our country.
- Thomas Jefferson (from a letter to George Logan, Nov. 12th, 1816)

Play with life, laugh with life,
dance lightly with life,
and smile at the riddles of life,
knowing that life's only true lessons
are writ small in the margin.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Life is an adventure.
I can only wonder what treasure
awaits at the top of the path.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

You're only here for a short visit.
Don't hurry. Don't worry.
And be sure to smell the flowers along the way.
- Walter Hagen

There are only two ways to live your life.
One is as though nothing is a miracle.
The other is as though everything is a miracle.
- Albert Einstein

Darkness cannot drive out darkness;
only light can do that.
Hate cannot drive out hate;
only love can do that.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

One can not reflect in streaming water.
Only those who know internal peace can give it to others.
- Lao Tzu

If the only prayer you said in your whole life was,
Thank you, that would suffice.
- Meister Eckhart

The only thing necessary for evil to triumph
is for enough good men to do nothing.
- Edmund Burke

We can only be said to be truly alive in those moments
when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.
- Thornton Wilder

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May the world be kind to you,
and may your own thoughts be gentle upon yourself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Inspirational Quotes

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