What are your favorite motivational quotes?

"Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm."
- Sir Winston Churchill

“Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way around or through it. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves.

Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.”
― Bruce Lee

"If you're not getting rejected on a daily basis your goals aren't ambitious enough." - Chris Dixon http://cdixon.org/2010/09/12/getting-rejected/

This is a prepared text of the Commencement address delivered by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, on June 12, 2005.

"Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart"

RIP -Steve Jobs

Even if your efforts are greeted with indifferences, do not lose heart. Remember, the Sun puts a wonderful show at the day break, yet most people in the audience go on sleeping!

I always quote following message of Mahatma Gandhi and repeat in the meetings:

A customer is the most important person on our premises.

He is not dependent on us.

We are dependent on him.

He is not an interruption to our work.

He is the purpose of it.

He is not an outsider in our business.

He is part of us.

We are not doing him a favour by serving him.

He is doing us a favour by giving us the opportunity to do so.

Mahatma Gandhi

Goethe... “Until one is committed there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative & creation, there is one elementary truth - the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one commits oneself, then Providence moves, too.

All sort of things occur to help one that would not otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would come his way.

Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now."

"Business is a game, the greatest game in the world if you know how to play it."
Thomas J. Watson
Founder of IBM

Do Or Do Not - There Is No Try - Yoda

“Do not be satisfied with the stories that come before you. Unfold your own myth.”
Rumi

If you think you can, or you think you can't - you are right. (Henry Ford)

You are never too old to start doing what you want to do, but you lose precious time while you wait to begin.

"Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." - Thomas Edison

Fall down six times, get up seven.

"Be yourself; everyone else is already taken." ~ Oscar Wilde

"Desire.
Perspire.
Acquire."
- Ed Parker

"1. Everyone works. 2. Nothing is free. 3. All start at the bottom."
- framed list of rules in Roy Urban's martial arts studio

"If you want to go ahead, go ahead." -Unkown

"I don't want to get to the end of my lie and find that I just lived the length of it. I want to have live the width of it as well." ~ Diane Ackerman

Practice does not make perfect. Only perfect practice makes perfect.
Vince Lombardi

"I am careful not to confuse excellence with perfection. Excellence, I can reach for; perfection is God's business."

- Michael J. Fox

"Do or do not. There is no try." - YODA

My personal favorite in on perseverance in the face of adversity:

“Smooth seas don’t make skillful sailors”

When someone shares with you something of value and you derive value from it, you have an obligation to share it with others.... Chinese Proverb

"You don't know how truly tough you are, until being tough, is your only option."

In memory of Steve Jobs; one of his quotes - "What join the navy when you can be a pirate?"

Henry Ward Beecher: "Every adversity, every failure, every heartache carries with it the seed of equal or greater benefit for those with a positive mental attitude."

I appreciate the Sir Winston Churchill quote and added it to my favorites list:
http://www.michaelhartzell.com/quotes-to-Inspire/bid/76202/Success-is-the-abi...

As life tosses it's curves, the favorites quotes list has grown. (which is why I now keep them handy on a list)

Recently, this popped out as a top favorite from Steve Jobs.

“No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

– Steve Jobs

If at first you don't succeed, try, try, try again.
— William E. Hickson

I have a few motivational quotes:

1. Take another look!

2. If it is going to be, it is up to me.

3. The world is a stage, and we are the actors

4. Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.
~ Sir Winston Churchill

5. Though I am a weeble, I can cut down big trees!

6. The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.
~ Eleanor Roosevelt

Make it a rule of your life never to regret and never to look back. Regret is an appalling waste of energy; you can’t build on it; it’s only for wallowing in.
- Katherine Mansfield

No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.

"Work hard, be kind, and amazing things will happen." Conan O'Brien

Admittedly, Conan is not as profound as Mahatma Gandhi (understatement!), but the simplicity and optimism of this quote help me focus my thoughts every morning. It delineates the two things we can control most in life - effort and attitude. Then we have to have faith in and experience the joy in our twisting, unfolding journey through life.

A similar question's been on LinkedIn for a while and I contributed a few there.
Today, and for here, one of my favorites:

An answer I can understand. An American tourist asks an Irishman:
"Why do Scuba divers always fall backwards off their boats?"
To which the Irishman replies: "If they fell forwards, they'd still be in the bloody boat."

I consider it the Occam's Razor of Q&A sessions.

"Invest in others and they will invest in themselves"

(Tim Hagen)

"Hell, there are no rules here. We're trying to accomplish something!"

-Thomas A. Edison

I love this David. People say they are 'trying to..." and I gently remind them, there is no such activity as TRYING--you either take action or you don't. TRYING is a mental lack of commitment.

"We'll either succeed spectacularly, or fail spectacularly, but whatever we do - it will be SPECTACULAR!"
~Peter Sweeney - Founder & Co-President of Primal Fusion

Don't let perfect get int he way of better
:)

"...The man who says it can't be done is generally interrupted by someone doing it."

- Elbert Hubbard

"Motivational quotes are the last thing you should use to motivate people" (just made it up)

Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower. -Steve Jobs

"Common Sense is the knack of seeing things as they are, and doing things as they ought to be done." ~C.E. Stowe

I love this quote because it puts matters in the proper order. It is simply not possible to 'do things as they ought to be done' if one does not FIRST put adequate effort into 'seeing things as they (really) are'.

Together, let's put the fun back into work!
Belldon Colme
belldoncolme@gmail.com

All great quotes - thanks for sharing. Here are my faves:

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." ~ Edmund Burke

"If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away." ~ Henry David Thoreau

"The pessimist complains about the wind. The optimist expects it to change. The leader adjusts the sails." ~ John Maxwell

1. "Asking the world to treat you fairly because you're a nice person is like asking a tiger not to eat you because you're a vegetarian"

2. "I work for money. You want loyalty, hire a dog".

serve your competition, and you won't have any...

Ignoring One's conscious is neither safe nor right, therefore, here am I~Ghandhi

I use this at the end of every episode of my show, The Wright Place TV Show.

"Beat the best and be the best everyday"

I also like our Chairman's quote: "We move the future"

"Practice Golden-Rule 1 of Management in Everything you do. Manage Others The Way You Would Like to Be Managed." [Brian Tracy]

"Life is an illusion ~ It is as YOU choose to perceive it"

"Never Say Never"
-Unknown

"Make it Happen"
Highly successful Australian Bank and my previous employer, CBA

What you don't expect, you don't experience !

When the going gets tough, the tough get going.

“All power is within you, you can do, anything and everything. believe in that do not believe that you are weak. You can do any thing and everything, without even the guidance of any one. Stand up and express the divinity within you…, Within each of you there is the power to remove all wants and all miseries. ”
-- Swami Vivekananda the greatest man in India,Tamil

He who has a thing to sell
And goes and whispers in a well
Is not as apt to get the dollars
As one who climbs a tree and hollers

Dare to be REMARKABLE!

"God gave us two ears and one mouth, so we ought to listen twice as much as we speak."
Author: ~Irish Proverb~

"Fortune favors the Bold"

"All progress requires change, but not all change is progress.: John Wooden

"Interity is doing the right thing, even if nobaody is watching." Chinese Fortune Cookie

''Eyes that open are many; Eyes that see are few ;you can not go farther than you see'',
-----David O Oyedepo

"The real leader has no need to lead--
he is content to point the way."
Henry Miller

My favorite. This quote got me motivated to start my business in the first place.

"Opportunity has hair on her forehead, but is bald behind. If you meet her seize her, for once let slip, Jove himself cannot catch her again." - Phaedrus

"Victory goes to the player who makes the next-to-last mistake."
- Chessmaster Savielly Grigorievitch Tartakower

"If you can't get rid of the skeleton in your closet, you'd best teach it to dance." - George Bernard Shaw

The 10 most important 2 letter words...
IF IT IS TO BE IT IS UP TO ME!!! (author: Unknown)

Just DO IT!

"It's not the will to win that matters - everyone has that. It's the will to prepare to win that matters." - Coach Paul Bear Bryant

Mr. Sawyer, love the Hubbard quote. Thanks. - Joseph

Seeing obstacles as opportunities!

"Be the answer, not the echo"

Nice one, Mr. Keahey. Very nice. I'm adding it to my list. The closest equivalent I have is "Be wary of people who enjoy casting large shadows. It's better to be the light that allows shadows to exist, that lights the way for others, than to be in someone else's darkness. "

"People don't fail because they aim too high and miss; people fail because they aim too low and hit!" Author unkown... Great insight... Strive for more and push harder.

And much like it:

Take calculated risks. That is quite different from being rash.
George S. Patton

A few classics if they haven't been mentioned yet...

1) Work while you work & play while you play; that is the way to be happy and gay.
2) Whatever you do do with your might; things done by halves are never done right.
3) Nothing ventured; nothing gained.

"To know and not do is the same with not knowing" Aristotel or Wang Yangming

Be positive

Nice. Third one is the best. Cheers

"Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help create the fact" -Willian James

One of my favorites would be...

"You will get all you want in life
if you help enough people get what they want". - Zig Ziglar

Life, business, and what have you is really all about "service" yet
let this service be done with sincerity to impress and bear good fruit.

if there is a well, there is a way

Tutto e' Possible - Everything is possible