The 25 Most Motivational Quotes of All Time
6) “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” — Thomas Edison
7) “What we fear doing most is usually what we most need to do.” — Tim Ferriss
8) “The vision of a champion is bent over, drenched in sweat, at the point of exhaustion, when nobody else is looking.” — Mia Hamm
9) “There is one thing that 99 percent of ‘failures’ and ‘successful’ folks have in common — they all hate doing the same things. The difference is successful people do them anyway.” — Darren Hardy
10) “7 months straight. No stopping, no maintenance weeks, no cheat meals. Why? Because if someone beat me, I didn’t want to look back at any cheat meals and ask ‘what if’. I did what it took every single day, and THAT is why I looked the way I did. You either want it or you don’t. Just so you know, there wasn’t a day that went by in the last 8-10 weeks of that prep where I didn’t want just ONE extra yogurt, or 5 less intervals of cardio. But, I was not going to be outworked! I was NOT going to be denied! And you know what? It was all worth it.” — Tommy Jeffers
I think of them as the 25 Most Hated Quotes by the Rainbow Coalition.
What has the Rainbow Coalition given up on recently?
Honesty and critical thinking.
Hit. Sunk.
Thanks! Now I can get to work.
You missed one – one that my Dad, God rest his magnificent soul, used to tell me when I would be down and out:
‘If you don’t get your sorry self up and busy, I’m gonna kick your ass from here into next week.’
Despair is the conclusion of fools. – Benjamin Disraeli
I actually prefer my father’s “great advice” one night at the dinner table to any of these treasures. It was so fabulous, it left the dinner table speechless – truly churchillian.
“Give them enough rope and they’ll dig their own grave.”
I think if Pop doesn’t outlive my mother, I might leave that one on his tombstone for posterity’s sake.
Category error.
That’s good wisdom for living life, but it’s not inspirational.
No disrespect to your father but isn’t that a mixed or fractured metaphor. I am always on the lookout for these because, like Yogi Berra, my wife was good for one or two per year. To be truly funny they have to be spontaneous and not contrived. Some of her best:
That’s too much milk over the dam.
She couldn’t see the forest at the end of the tunnel.
He’s full of crock.
My all time favorite inspirational line comes from John Wayne: “I’ve tried to live my life so my family loves me, my friends respect me and the others can do whatever the hell they want.”
That sums it up for me.
And another from the Duke:
“Courage is bein’ scared to death, and saddling up anyway.”
Personally, I would have used another Vince Lombardi quote from that same speech. To paraphrase…
“I believe every man’s finest hour is when he has worked his heart out in a good cause, and lies exhausted on the field of battle, victorious.”
It’s not a single quote, but given the state of things I come back to this exchange again and again. From the Wikipedia page for Admiral James Stockdale.
—–
In a business book by James C. Collins called Good to Great, Collins writes about a conversation he had with Stockdale regarding his coping strategy during his period in the Vietnamese POW camp.
“I never lost faith in the end of the story, I never doubted not only that I would get out, but also that I would prevail in the end and turn the experience into the defining event of my life, which, in retrospect, I would not trade.”
When Collins asked who didn’t make it out of Vietnam, Stockdale replied:
“Oh, that’s easy, the optimists. Oh, they were the ones who said, ‘We’re going to be out by Christmas.’ And Christmas would come, and Christmas would go. Then they’d say, ‘We’re going to be out by Easter.’ And Easter would come, and Easter would go. And then Thanksgiving, and then it would be Christmas again. And they died of a broken heart.”
Stockdale then added:
This is a very important lesson. You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end—which you can never afford to lose—with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.”
—–
I believe, in the end, freedom and liberty will prevail. But we’re not going to be home by Christmas.
My favorite is from that under-appreciated philosopher Yogi Berra:
“It ain’t over til its over.”
And when you come to a fork in the road, take it.
When asked for the time: “You mean right now?”
When asked where he wanted to be buried: “Surprise me.”
My Uncle and cousin combined spent 56 years in the Marine Corps. They taught me
“Be nice , be polite, but have a plan to kill everyone you meet.”
They are both the nicest guys you’d ever want to meet, but for the love of God don’t piss them off.
@3 Hubbub made me smile; you made me laugh so hard I scarred the dogs.
My favorite quote is actually 3 that mean the same thing and give you access to the 25:
To any vision must be brought an eye adapted to what is to be seen – Plotinus
Be prepared to appreciate what you meet – Frank Herbert
Good stuff is where you find it – J.E.M.
Success is not winning, it’s knowing how to take the next step and keep going, win or lose — Me
I wish I had a dollar for every time my Dad told me: “Nothing is free. Nobody is going to give you anything. If you want something you will have to work for it.” Of course, I was born and raised before all of the “entitlement” programs and apparently very few people remember his philosophy.
I don’t think these apply to yutes under the age of 30.
Different world they’re living in, and they are da future.
Be very afraid.
Wherever you go, there you are.
Ah, from Buckaroo Bonzai. You beat me to the punch!
I can still remember the look on Penny Priddy’s face when Buckaroo said that.
“That which doesn’t kill us has made a tactical mistake.”
FIFY.
Quoting Schlock Mercenary I see!
“That which does not kill me is dead meat when I get through with it…”
–Neil the Ork Barbarian, Shadowrun 1st Ed., first published 1989.
You forgot one:
“My refusal (was) to be born with any original sin. I have never felt guilty of my ability … I have never felt guilty of being a man … I saw the root of the world’s tragedy, the key to it, and the solution. I saw what had to be done. I went out to do it.”
- John Galt
The most useful to me personally was on my way down the waterfall, I kept telling myself, “Head up, feet down” because I knew landing on my head would be a bad idea. (Walking on a broken hip kind of sucked but it was better than the alternative.)
I’ve never liked the Nietzschean “what doesn’t kill you…” platitude. A good quote is based in truth, that one is not so much because what doesn’t kill you can you leaved you maimed or disfigured for life. I understand you MAY emerge stronger mentally, by necessity, but you may not, there is no certainty, which makes the quote invalid.
One of my favorites is Cato saying “When I’m dead I’d rather people ask why I have no monument, than why I have one.”
–very clever by Cato –first of all, it takes a little time to understand it, exemplifying why its former case beats its latter.
My own fave:
“A free bottle in front of me beats a pre frontal lobotomy”
One of my favorites:
“It is easier to ask forgiveness than to get permission.”
— Commodore Grace Hopper, USN
Here’s one I used on the Brigadier commanding the NYARNG 42nd ID one sommer at annual training (BDS). I don’t think I was ever the first to say it, but I got a laugh and I got my way:
“While the General is here with me and my men, he is the general. As soon as he gets back into his jeep and leaves the training area, I am the general. That is the general rule, sir.”
I like the one they teach at American business schools…
“The job of being a manager gets a whole lot easier once he figures out that not only can he delegate the work, he can also delegate the management.”
Many years ago, a close friend of mine, when asked “how are you doing?’, responded with: ‘Better than yesterday, but not as good as tomorrow.’
“The Lord works from the inside out. The world works from the outside in. The world would take people out of the slums. Christ takes the slums out of people, and then they take themselves out of the slums. The world would mold men by changing their environment. Christ changes men, who then change their environment. The world would shape human behavior, but Christ can change human nature.”
- Ezra Taft Benson
From my dad, “Be sure to marry a good cook, the sex will wear off but you will always be hungry”.
I’ve adapted Frank McCourt’s line from “Angela’s Ashes” to the current times (strike childhood, insert middle-age):
“… It was, of course, a miserable childhood: the happy childhood is hardly worth your while.”
There’s some sort of system-order law relationship between #23 and #24, Benson and McCord –i tried to figure it out, but it ballooned, and i had to skedaddle quick
” … but oh, my son, never have a wishbone where your backbone should be.”
In no particular order:
#1 “If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well”.
#2 “The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.”
#3 “Get off my lawn”.
#4 “The secret to happiness is not doing what you love, it’s loving what you
do.”
#5 “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss”.
#6 “You can’t reason a man out of an emotional position”.
#7 “I’ve never seen work that dishonored a man but I’ve seen plenty of men that dishonored work”
#8 “If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.”
#9 “Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.”
#10 “Honor your mother and father and spouse and children.“
#26. “Yes, we can”- King Barry O; #27. ” Hope & Change”- Emperor BHO # 28. ” You didn’t build that”- Dictator Obama and last but not least #29. “Resist we much, because much we must resist”. “Rev”. Al Sharpon
Dear old dads favorite message to me.
“Remember, without me you wouldn’t be in this world, and at any time I can take your ass out and make another just like you”
Kept me in line until I realized he was just a teddy bear with a tough belt!
Backwards aphorism: “Into every life a little rain must fall” …should be “Into every rain a little life must fall”.
“Freedom comes out of the barrel of your own gun, tyranny comes out of the barrel of guns owned by the state.”
“Freedom carries a steep price, but still a bargain compared to every alternative.”
-Me.
If We could tax every lie of Obama, his administration, Congress, and all Obama media bootlickers, America would be debt free after the first remittance.
And this from Rush Limbaugh reading from a letter to the editor:
“…….. and We need to eliminate the ‘natural born citizen’ qualification for President of the United States, since it unfairly disqualifies those born by Cesarean Section”.
I’m sure this will inspire Congress and Obama to force through legislation to correct this flaw.
Stratagem for success;
If you meet a man of larger stature than yourself, impress him with yourself.
If you meet a man of smaller stature than yourself, impress him with himself.