Quote Unquote

I am a sucker for a good quote. They inspire me and I often use them to give advice. Ages ago, I read about how my personality type — Introverted Classic Freedom (ISFJ) — likes to use sayings in conversation but ironically often gets them wrong — and I do. Really wrong. My worst offense is, “Three in hand, one in the bush, what’s the difference?” but a close second is, “You know what they say about people living in glass houses…” I used that one for years until I did so in the wrong context. My friend looked at me and said, “What do you mean?” Only I had no idea what people meant about people in glass houses. I was simply compelled to spout it. That’s when I learned about the stones bit. So, in the mood to inspire this week, and given my penchant for sayings, I collected a few good ones from my daily quote email (from Values.com) and arranged them by personality type. I copied them verbatim so they should be free of my usual butchering.

Naturally, there is going to be a Classic (SJ) bent to many of these quotes because I am the curator and I am a Classic. But, some were inspiring to me because they were very different than my thinking and therefore I knew they were things more closely aligned to the strengths of other personality types. I don’t know any of the speaker’s personality types but rather chose categories based on whether I thought a certain personality type would be most likely to say the quote.

The Pixie Back-Up Mantra after Life Should Be Easy:

“Be yourself. There is something that you can do better than any other. Listen to the inward voice and bravely obey that.”
Unknown Author

“The art of being yourself at your best is the art of unfolding your personality into the person you want to be…Be gentle with yourself, learn to love yourself, to forgive yourself, for only as we have the right attitude toward ourselves can we have the right attitude toward others.”
Wilferd A. Peterson
(1900-1995); author

Classic (SJ):

“The best preparation for tomorrow is to do today’s work superbly well. ”
Sir William Osler (1849-1919);
Canadian physician, founding professor at Johns Hopkins Hospital

“Humility does not mean thinking less of yourself than of other people, nor does it mean having a low opinion of your own gifts. It means freedom from thinking about yourself at all.”
William  Temple
(1881-1944); priest in the Church of England

“Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting. So… get on your way.”
Theodor “Dr. Seuss” Geisel
(1904-1991); Writer, Cartoonist

“Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.”
Seneca (4-65);
Roman statesman, philosopher
           
“In the confrontation between the stream and the rock, the stream always wins- not through strength but by perseverance.”
H. Jackson Brown, Jr. writer

“The doors we open and close each day decide the lives we live.”
Flora Whittemore 

Fun (SP):

“If you’re not failing every now and again, it’s a sign you’re not doing anything very innovative. ”
Woody Allen
(1935-); Comedian

“Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterwards.”
Vernon Sanders Law
(1930-); Major League Baseball pitcher

“Nothing is a waste of time if you use the experience wisely.”
Auguste Rodin
(1840-1917); sculptor

“I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.”
Douglas Adams (1952-2001);
English writer, humorist and dramatist

“When it rains, most birds head for shelter; the Eagle is the only bird that, in order to avoid the rain, starts flying above the cloud.”
Unknown

“When obstacles arise, you change your direction to reach your goal, you do not change your decision to get there.”
Zig Ziglar
(1926-); motivational author, speaker

Organic (NF):

“Reflect upon your present blessings — of which every man has many — not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.”
Charles Dickens
(1812-1870); Novelist

“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”
Howard Thurman
(1899-1981); Author, Philosopher, Theologian, Educator, Civil Rights Leader

“Every piece of the universe, even the tiniest little snow crystal, matters somehow. I have a place in the pattern, and so do you.”
T.A. Barron (born 1952);
Writer

“Accept the things to which fate binds you, and love the people with whom fate brings you together, but do so with all your heart.”
Marcus Aurelius
(121-180); roman emporer

“We all have our own life to pursue, our own kind of dream to be weaving, and we all have the power to make wishes come true, as long as we keep believing.”
Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888);
novelist

“In moments of discouragement, defeat, or even despair, there are always certain things to cling to. Little things usually: remembered laughter, the face of a sleeping child, a tree in the wind-in fact, any reminder of something deeply felt or dearly loved. No man is so poor as not to have many of these small candles. When they are lighted, darkness goes away-and a touch of wonder remains.”
These Small Candles – tombstone inscription in Britain

Smart (NT):

“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise. ”
—F. Scott Fitzgerald
(1896-1940); author

“The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can’t find them, make them. ”
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950);
playwright, Nobel Prize winner

“He who has faith has… an inward reservoir of courage, hope, confidence, calmness, and assuring trust that all will come out well – even though to the world it may appear to come out most badly.”
—B. C. Forbes
(1880-1954); financial journalist; founded Forbes Magazine

“What is defeat? Nothing but education; nothing but the first step to something better.”
—Wendell Phillips
(1811-1884); abolitionist, orator

“It always seems impossible until its done.”
Nelson Mandela
(1918-); former President of South Africa

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”
Mark Twain [Samuel Clemens] (1835-1910);
author, humorist