Discreditable Quotes

Training - training is everything; training is all there is to a person.
We speak of nature; it is folly; there is no such thing as nature;
what we call by that misleading name is merely heredity and training.
We have no thoughts of our own, no opinions of our own;
they are transmitted to us, trained into us.
All that is original in us, and therefore fairly creditable
or discreditable to us, can be covered up and hidden
by the point of a cambric needle, all the rest being atoms
contributed by, and inherited from, a procession of ancestors
that stretches back a billion years to the Adam-clam
or grasshopper or monkey from whom our race has been
so tediously and ostentatiously and unprofitably developed.
And as for me, all that I think about in this plodding sad pilgrimage,
this pathetic drift between the eternities,
is to look out and humbly live a pure and high and blameless life,
and save that one microscopic atom in me that is truly me:
the rest may land in Sheol and welcome for all I care.
- Mark Twain in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

Who hears me, who understands me, becomes mine,
a possession for all time.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

You cannot teach a man anything;
you can only help him find it within himself.
- Galileo Galilei

Not every difficult and dangerous thing
is suitable for training,
but only that which is conducive to success
in achieving the object of our effort.
- Epictetus

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- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Religion is the masterpiece of the art of animal training,
for it trains people as to how they should think.
- Arthur Schopenhauer

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

We are strange beings, we seem
to go free, but we go in chains -
chains of training, custom, convention,
association, environment -
in a word, Circumstance -
and against these bonds
the strongest of us struggle in vain.
- Mark Twain

From the way most people live,
one would never guess that humans are beings of free will.
Repetition can be a choice, but often it isn't.
The athlete or pianist who practices the same routine
day after day, year after year, has their eye on a goal.
The unending repetition is a conscious choice
in the pursuit of a life dream.
But what about the sameness of most lives?
Observe the morning commute, the after-work drink,
the Sunday football game or religious service -
how many of those people are consciously following their dream,
training their mind, body, and spirit through that daily repetition?
And how many are mindlessly slogging through each day
out of habit and boredom?
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

We make sacred pact. I promise teach
karate to you, you promise learn.
I say, you do, no questions.
- Miyagi: character in the movie Karate Kid

Training yourself to live in the present -
without regretting the past or fearing the future -
is a recipe for a happy life.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

I am trying to own my own opinions
and offer what I know as an option,
just as I would present a tray of appetizers for my guests.
Here are several choices that I have created -
if one looks good you are welcome to take it.
In other words, I am training myself to say,
"May I tell you how it is for me?"
When I ask the question, it means waiting
for the invitation to share.
It also means being prepared for my friend to say,
"No." They don't want to know.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed,
and in such desperate enterprises?
If a man does not keep pace with his companions,
perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.
- Henry David Thoreau

If a man loses 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

If a man does not keep pace with his companions,
perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.
- Henry David Thoreau

Everyone hears what you say.
Friends listen to what you say.
Best friends listen to what you don't say.
- Anonymous

Footprints in the sands of time...
Where have you been?
Where are you going?
Why are you going there?
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

People often say that motivation doesn't last.
Well, neither does bathing - that's why we recommend it daily.
- Zig Ziglar

Choose to See Beauty and Joy:
Much in life can be seen as ugly or beautiful - it's our choice.
Why would we choose to see any part of life as ugly?
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

There are a hundred valid reasons why something can't be done,
but only one reason, Commitment, why it can.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

To live is to choose. But to choose well,
you must know who you are and what you stand for,
where you want to go and why you want to get there.
- Kofi Annan

Instead of worrying about what people say of you,
why not spend time trying to accomplish
something they will admire.
- Dale Carnegie

We may have our private opinions
but why should they be a bar to the meeting of hearts?
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

Always listen to the experts.
They'll tell you what can't be done and why.
Then do it.
- Robert Heinlein

Why live?
Adding one to my count of days, or postponing
a feared death by another day do not inspire me.
I live to experience something new each day -
to learn something new, meet a new friend,
bring joy into someone's life,
feel the wind newly on my skin,
touch a new fear, a new anger,
and with focused intent and good fortune,
find an ample measure of my own joy.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

There are those that look at things
the way they are, and ask "Why?"
I dream of things that never were, and ask "Why not?"
- Robert F. Kennedy paraphrase of George Bernard Shaw

I can see, and that is why I can be happy,
in what you call the dark, but which to me is golden.
I can see a God-made world, not a manmade world.
- Helen Keller

Why does a woman work ten years to change a man's habits
and then complain that he's not the man she married?
- Barbra Streisand

Where am I? Who am I? How did I come to be here?
What is this thing called the world?
How did I come into the world?
Why was I not consulted?
And If I am compelled to take part in it,
Where is the director? I want to see him.
- Soren Kierkegaard

Ask why this task is on your to-do list.
Consider discarding those items to which
you are not truly committed.
For the tasks which do speak
to the longings of your own heart,
begin now, today, this moment.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Why, I'd like nothing better than to achieve
some bold adventure, worthy of our trip.
- Aristophanes

Much in life can be seen as ugly or beautiful - it's our choice.
Why would we choose to see any part of life as ugly?
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Life is change. Without change, there is no life.
Why then do we so fight against change?
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The reason why men do not obey us,
is because they see the mud at the bottom of our eye.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

You see things and you say, Why?
But I dream things that never were and say, Why not
- George Bernard Shaw

I can't understand why people
are frightened by new ideas.
I'm frightened of old ones.
- John Cage

Why, sometimes I've believed as many as
six impossible things before breakfast.
- Lewis Carroll

There is always the danger that we may
just do the work for the sake of the work.
This is where the respect and the love and the devotion come in -
that we do it to God, to Christ,
and that's why we try to do it as beautifully as possible.
- Mother Teresa

I make it a policy to try never to
make a complete idiot of myself twice in the same way.
After all, there's always all kinds of new ways
to make a complete idiot of myself.
Why repeat the old ones?
- Margot Dalton

Sometimes I lie awake at night and ask "Why me?"
Then a voice answers "Nothing personal,
your name just happened to come up. -
- Charlie Brown, in Charles M. Schulz' cartoon Peanuts

Remember, we all stumble, every one of us.
That's why it's a comfort to go hand in hand.
- Emily Kimbrough

Life repeats itself mindlessly -
unless you become mindful, it will go on repeating like a wheel.
That's why Buddhists call it the wheel of life and death,
the wheel of time.
It moves like a wheel: birth is followed by death,
death is followed by birth;
love is followed by hate, hate is followed by love;
success is followed by failure,
failure is followed by success. Just see!
If you can watch just for a few days,
you will see a pattern emerging, a wheel pattern.
One day, a fine morning, you are feeling so good and so happy,
and another day you are so dull,
so dead that you start thinking of committing suicide.
And just the other day you were so full of life,
so blissful that you were feeling thankful to God,
that you were in a mood of deep gratefulness,
and today there is great complaint
and you don't see the point why one should go on living...
And it goes on and on, but you don't see the pattern.
Once you see the pattern, you can get out of it.
- Osho

"Be Prepared."
"Be prepared for what?"
"Why, for any old thing."
- Robert Baden-Powell,
the founder of Scouting.
[as quoted in the Boy Scout Handbook]

Ecstasy is our very nature;
not to be ecstatic is simply unnecessary.
To be ecstatic is natural, spontaneous.
It needs no effort to be ecstatic,
it needs great effort to be miserable.
That's why you look to tired,
because misery is really hard work;
to maintain it is really difficult,
because you are doing something against nature.
- Osho

Being human, we are imperfect. That's why we need each other.
To catch each other when we falter.
To encourage each other when we lose heart.
Some may lead; others may follow; but none of us can go it alone.
- Hilary Clinton

Time to Die:
A Zen teacher had a rare and priceless teacup.
One day, his precocious student accidentally broke the cup.
Hearing the footsteps of his teacher,
the student held the pieces of the cup behind his back.
When the master appeared, he asked: "Why do people have to die?"
"This is natural," explained the teacher.
"Everything has to die and has just so long to live."
The student showed the shattered cup, saying,
"It was time for your cup to die."
- Traditional Zen Koan

I honor you, Hero, for you do not play to the crowd.
You play to your own soul.
An audience of one fills the house with its appreciation and applause.
Others follow you, and may attempt to emulate you,
but that is not why you are a hero.
Fame may smile upon you, or it may not.
The world may cheer your name, or you may be the unknown warrior
who rescued comrades in battle,
or taught a young girl how to shed tears of joy.
Whatever you did, you did not do for fame.
If you had, you would not be a Hero.
You are a Hero for your bold courageous inspired action.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Do you ever question why our educational system
teaches competition rather than cooperation?
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The Lord prefers common-looking people.
That is why he makes so many of them.
- Abraham Lincoln

Everyone believes that their beliefs are the right ones -
that is why they are called beliefs.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

I want to share with you the three rules
that I have in order to accept an apprentice.
Rule Number 1: Don't believe me.
I don't want you to believe me
but I want you to listen and make choices - your choices.
If what I say, doesn't work for you, leave it.
But if it works for you and that's what you want, then make it yours.
Rule Number 2: Don't believe yourself.
Why? Because most of your belief system is a lie - it's not true.
And by believing yourself, you create all the limitations
that don't allow you to be what you really are.
Don't believe yourself. Listen to what you say,
listen to what you think, listen to what you believe.
And when you listen, open your ears, open your mind,
open your intelligence and make choices.
Rule 3 is, don't believe anybody else.
Don't believe them at all.
Open your ears and your mind; listen and make choices.
- don Miguel Ruiz

Most of us believe that we have
been betrayed by someone outside of us -
in other words someone has done something to hurt us,
been dishonest or broken a promise made:
some trust in some concept was broken.
Indeed someone may have taken an action
that took only their needs into consideration,
they may have not followed through on a promise made,
and they may have not told you the truth.
But their actions have nothing to do with you
and have everything to do with them.
That's why no one can do anything TO you.
They can take actions that involve you that you may not like -
according to your point of view.
But you are not a victim, no way, no how.
- Sheri Rosenthal

Yesterday is history,
tomorrow is a mystery.
Today is a gift.
That is why it is called Present.
- Anonymous

For as long as I can remember, I've been searching for something,
some reason why we're here. What are we doing here? Who are we?
If this is a chance to find out
even just a little part of that answer...
I don't know, I think it's worth a human life. Don't you?
- the Jodie Foster movie Contact (1997)

I know why families were created with all their imperfections.
They humanize you.
They are made to make you forget yourself occasionally,
so that the beautiful balance of life is not destroyed.
- Anais Nin

I am the owner of my choices.
I am the source for the perspectives I choose to hold...
regardless of how aware I am of why or how I come to possess
that particular perspective.
It takes courage to look into the mirror of our souls, absent excuses.
I will look into that mirror little bits at a time.
SEE and ACT. SEE what I can bear to see and ACT upon what I am able.
This is the heart of a gentle invitation to personal responsibility.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

If you have an emotional reaction in the presence of someone,
your heart is telling you that you have
not resolved your issues with them.
In other words, you have not truly forgiven that person.
All of this begs the question, how do we forgive?
First, cease lying to yourself and stop telling yourself stories
about why you behave the way you do.
Stop blaming your behavior on other people
and take responsibility for your emotional reactions.
If you could forgive all the people in your life
who have hurt or wounded you
it would be possible to be in control of your behavior
instead of being in reaction to other people all of the time.
Imagine living life without experiencing
a constant emotional roller-coaster of pain, anger, and jealousy!
That would be bliss!
-Sheri Rosenthal

I read that you should never go out with someone
if you can think of three reasons why you shouldn't.
- the movie Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (2004)

"Rabbit's clever," said Pooh thoughtfully.
"Yes," said Piglet, "Rabbit's clever."
"And he has Brain."
"Yes," said Piglet, "Rabbit has Brain."
There was a long silence.
"I suppose," said Pooh, "that that's why he never understands anything."
- A. A. Milne (Winnie-The-Pooh)

Always question WHY you are doing something.
Is it a free-will gift or an obligation?
That which is done out of a feeling of obligation
is unworkable as a substitute for a gift.
Obligation creates a feeling of resentment on your part,
and evokes resentment rather than gratitude
on the part of the recipient.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

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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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