Top 100 Quotes & Sayings About Doing Things Yourself (2024)

When you focus on how wonderful God is and all the great things He's done ... is doing ... and even will do in your life, your natural response will be praise, adoration and awe. Don't let yourself ever get used to it ... stay amazed! — Joyce Meyer

Fifth positions, heads, musicality, energy. Not technical things so much-getting your leg higher or doing more turns but things that would set you apart from other dancers. The only way you can be different is to be yourself If you don't find your spirit and reveal it, you just look like every other dancer. — Suzanne Farrell

Decide in your heart of hearts what really excites and challenges you, and start moving your life in that direction. Every decision you make, from what you eat to what you do with your time tonight, turns you into who you are tomorrow, and the day after that. Look at who you want to be, and start sculpting yourself into that person. You may not get exactly where you thought you'd be, but you will be doing things that suit you in a profession you believe in. Don't let life randomly kick you into the adult you don't want to become. — Chris Hadfield

Sit down and get out a piece of paper and start making lists. Ask yourself, are you in harmony with the things in your life? Are you adopting superficial values? Are you giving your being enough room? Are you doing new and creative things? — Frederick Lenz

Nothing matters. You get yourself into a state in which you imagine things which have no basis in reality ... One begins for some reason to worry about something and, if one allows oneself to go on doing that, one gradually imagines all kinds of things. It is a kind of self-indulgence and one gets into a perpetual daydream. It is essential to stop this process and face the real world
which is never so bad as all that. — Leonard Woolf

Every day we have plenty of opportunities to get angry, stressed or offended. But what you're doing when you indulge these negative emotions is giving something outside yourself power over your happiness. You can choose to not let little things upset you. — Joel Osteen

I want you to think of two different situations. First, remember times when you've felt your best, at the top of your game, alive and vibrant. Pay attention to your posture, the muscles in your face, your breathing. Then, I want you to think of occasions where you've felt sick or anxious. Don't just think of people. Think of activities. This will help us reveal what makes you happy. Pay attention to how your body responds to these scenarios - it will serve as your biggest indicator in the future when you're actually doing things." This woman was damn brilliant. "And remember, it's okay to feel sad, but just try to limit your bouts with it to an hour a day. Let it all out, give yourself that time to heal, nurture and comfort yourself. You won't heal unless you grieve. Grieving is good."
"Good grief?"
"Yes. It takes courage to grieve. — Stephanie Klein

Don't give in, Alex, don't let them win. You beat them once and you can do it again. Don't let this place break you. Keep your mind busy, keep yourself occupied, find things to do. If you're doing things, then you still exist, right? — Alexander Gordon Smith

And worse, you're not doing anything interesting anymore. You're not seeing anything, saying anything. The weird paradox is that you think you're at the center of things, and that makes your opinions more valuable, but you yourself are becoming less vibrant. I bet you haven't done anything offscreen in months. Have you? — Dave Eggers

Do not let yourself be bothered by the inconsequential. One has only so much time in this world, so devote it to the work and the people most important to you, to those you love and things that matter. One can waste half a lifetime with people one doesn't really like, or doing things when one would be better off somewhere else. — Louis L'Amour

As you release the things you no longer love or use, you call back to yourself the parts of your spirit that have been attached to them, and attached to the emotional needs and memories associated with those objects. In so doing, you bring yourself powerfully into present time. Your energy, instead of being dispersed in a thousand different, unproductive directions, becomes more centered and focused. You feel more spiritually complete and more at peace with yourself. — Karen Kingston

Sometimes another person's fear tells you that everything you're about to do is right. — Shannon L. Alder

You reach a point when you say to yourself, 'Do I want to keep doing this?' There are other things on my plate I want to do - I've been writing a play; I've been neglecting my standup. — Joy Behar

Another thing you end up doing when you get older, is you spend so much time sort of trying desperately to keep from just looking just a little older. You're just constantly putting stuff on your face and having things removed from yourself and opening up copies of "Vogue" so that you can find new ways to throw whatever money you've managed to save into the arms of some doctor who has just come up with a new way of lasering your face that feels like electroshock and all these things. — Nora Ephron

Things we had, like respect and trust, but also freely expressed desires and accountability to whatever degree it took to make both people happy. It took work, a willingness to fight passionately and fairly--out of bed, not just in it--commitment and honesty. It took waking up and saying each day, "I hold this man sacred and always will. He's my sun, moon, and stars."
It took letting the other person in; a thing I'd stopped doing. It took being unafraid to ask for what you wanted, to put yourself on the line, to risk it all for love. — Karen Marie Moning

True maturity is in attitude and a true attitude is maturity. — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

Having a tough time, things aren't working out no matter what you try and do? That's because you are spending your whole life just doing things for yourself. That's a very limited view of your being. — Frederick Lenz

Picture yourself in your minds eye as having already achieved this goal. See yourself doing the things you'll be doing when you've reached your goal. — Earl Nightingale

What I've found - and the older I get, the more I understand this and stand behind it - is, my whole life has been an exploration of telling the truth. It's scary to be truthful, and it's scary to reveal yourself, and I'm very attracted to doing things that scare me. — Jane Wiedlin

What you're doing--it's the right thing. Going after what you love despite everything you've done, and I won't sugarcoat it, you've done some pretty lousy things, but you did it all because you love this single human being so much you couldn't help yourself. There is an honesty to that. — Tarryn Fisher

It's not weird to look at yourself in the mirror at the gym - that's why they're there! You have to make sure that you're doing things right. — Alison Sweeney

That is my way of doing things, and I wouldn't necessarily recommend this to anybody else; if you need to do technical exercises, you do them. The whole point of practicing is to get to know yourself, to know your weaknesses and to zero in on them and target them. It's not really about employing anybody else's formulas, because you really have to find what is best for you and what you need. — Marc-Andre Hamelin

In the upshot there is only one answer for the preacher who wonders whether he is worthy to preach the sermon he has composed or for the writer who wonders whether he is worthy to write the religious book he is working on. The answer is: Of course not. To ask yourself: Am I worthy to perform this Christian task? is really the peak of pride and presumption. For the very question carries the implication that we spend most of our time doing things we are worthy to do. We simply do not have that kind of worth. — Harry Blamires

Experienced things that caused you to deemed yourself unworthy. Healing the wounds of the past is one of the biggest and most worthwhile challenges of life. It's important to know when and how you were programed so you can change the program. In doing so is your responsibility no one else's. — Oprah Winfrey

Since it is likely that, being men, they would sin every day, St. Paul consoles his hearers by saying 'renew yourselves' from day to day. This is what we do with houses: we keep constantly repairing them as they wear old. You should do the same thing to yourself. Have you sinned today? Have you made your soul old? Do not despair, do not despond, but renew your soul by repentance, and tears, and Confession, and by doing good things. And never cease doing this. — John Chrysostom

The thing that's hard about it - the thing that makes it so hard when the person you love has been taken from you, not by something evil you could have seen coming but by random, pure chance - is that you find yourself suddenly living through a history other than the one you expected to live, through no fault of your own. I feel . . . it's hard to describe, but I feel weirdly outside of time. Ever since the accident I've had these moments when I felt like a visiting guest in this world, not a permanent resident. Like sometimes I look in a mirror and I feel like I can almost see through the version of me on the other side of the glass. And sometimes I feel like I can see the history I used to be in more clearly than the history I'm in now - the real history is one where Philip and Sean and I are all together, being a family and doing whatever family things people do, and this one's like . . . like a fake version of events that I've been yanked into, where everything's gone wrong. — Dexter Palmer

As I've moved along - not only my life, but my career and things like that - you look at yourself and start going, 'Oh, man, are you still doing what you set out to do? Are the ideals you had still the same?' Sometimes you measure up and sometimes you don't. — Amos Lee

I'm the train.
I'm the one careening out of control.
Because sometime you see yourself- you see yourself the way you could be- the way you might be if things were different. And if you look too closely, what you see will scare you, it'll make you wonder what you might do given the opportunity. You know there's a different side of yourself you don't want to recognize, a side you don't want to see in the daylight. You spend your whole life doing everything to push it down and away, out of sight, out of mind. You pretend that a piece of yourself doesn't exist.
You live like that for a long time.
For a long time, you're safe.
And then you're not. — Tahereh Mafi

You must know that weather or not you are practicing mental prayer has nothing to do with keeping your lips closed. If, while I am speaking with God, I am fully conscious of doing so, and if this is more real to me than the words I am uttering, then I am combining mental and vocal prayer. I am amazed when people tell me that you are speaking with God by reciting the Paternoster even while you are thinking of worldly things. When you speak with a Lord so great, you should think of Who it is you are addressing and what you yourself are, if only that you may speak to Him with proper respect. How can you address a king with the reverence he deserves unless you are clearly conscious of his position and yours? — Teresa Of Avila

If you can cut yourself - your mind - free of what other
people do and say, of what you've said or done, of the things
that you're afraid will happen, the impositions of the body
that contains you and the breath within, and what the whirling
chaos sweeps in from outside, so that the mind is freed from
fate, brought to clarity, and lives life on its own recognizance
- doing what's right, accepting what happens, and speaking
the truth
If you can cut free of impressions that cling to the mind,
free of the future and the past - can make yourself, as
Empedocles says, "a sphere rejoicing in its perfect
stillness," and concentrate on living what can be lived
(which means the present) ... then you can spend the time
you have left in tranquillity. And in kindness. And at peace
with the spirit within you. — Marcus Aurelius

I mean, mentally you brace yourself for the ending of a novel. As you're reading, you're aware of the fact that there's only a page or two left in the book, and you get ready to close it. but with a film there's no way of telling, especially nowadays, when films are much more loosely structured, much more ambivalent, than they used to be. There's no way of telling which frame is going to be the last. The film is going along, just as life goes along, people are behaving, doing things, drinking, talking, and we're watching them, and at any point the director chooses, without warning, without anything being resolved, or explained, or wound up, it can just...end. — David Lodge

If you ask people to do things and they usually don't get around to them, stop asking yourself, "What's the matter with people these days?" Instead, ask yourself, "What's the matter with me? What am I doing or failing to do that causes people to give me empty promises?" — Ed Bliss

You have a certain objectivity, as a member of the audience, and you can come away maybe being provoked into a certain discourse or a certain arena of questioning, regarding how you would deal with things that your character has to deal with. Whereas when you're doing a film, once you start asking, "What would I do?," you're getting the distance greater between yourself and the character, or you're bringing the character to you, which I think is self-serving, in the wrong way. The idea is to bring yourself to the character. — Colin Farrell

I've found that doing interviews forces you to face yourself; I'm constantly having to search within myself, to see why I do certain things. — Christina Aguilera

Challenge yourself by doing things that hurt, on purpose. Have a willpower practice, such as very hard exercise, meditation, endurance, or cold showers. Choose something that makes your brain scream with how hard it is, and try to tolerate it. The goal isn't just to get used to it. It's to understand that pain is something you can survive. — Julien Smith

The only way to move forward is to focus on the good in your life and the good that you are doing for others and yourself. My past has shown me things in life, others and myself that I wouldn't wish upon anyone, but I can choose to pick up the pieces and build a beautiful life for myself and help others to do the same. — Brittany Burgunder

You disappoint yourself more often by not doing things because of cowardice and temerity than you ever did by doing things that turn out to be wrong. — Fred Hollows

I've done things that I wouldn't ordinarily seem capable of doing. And I've proven myself in situations where there's life and death at stake. And so, I can live with myself knowing that it's not a matter of guts or anything like that. It's a matter of willingness to go the length, to transcend yourself. — Jack Kirby

I'd simplified and objectified our relationship into one of lust and boundaries, and while both were necessary for a good relationship, it took a lot more than that to make it an epic one. Things we had, like respect and trust, but also freely expressed desires and accountability to whatever degree it took to make both people happy. It took work, a willingness to fight passionately and fairly - out of bed, not just in it - commitment and honesty. It took waking up and saying each day, I hold this man sacred and always will. He's my sun, moon, and stars. It took letting the other person in; a thing I'd stopped doing. It took being unafraid to ask for what you wanted, to put yourself on the line, to risk it all for love. We — Karen Marie Moning

Our task is to announce in deed and word that the exile is over, to enact the symbols that speak of healing and forgiveness, to act body in God's world in the power of the Spirit. Luther's definition of sin was hom*o incurvatus in se, "humans turned in on themselves." Does the industry in which you find yourself foster or challenge that? You may not be able to change the way your discipline currently works, but that isn't necessarily your vocation. Your task is to find the symbolic ways of doing things differently, planting flags in hostile soil, setting up signposts that say there is a different way to be human. And when people are puzzled at what you are doing, find ways - fresh ways - of telling the story of the return of the human race from its exile, and use those stories as your explanation. — N. T. Wright

There's ways to amuse yourself while doing things and thats how I look at efficency. — Donald Knuth

He looked at me, eyebrows high and the sun glinting on his disguise-black hair. "You do the damnedest things in order to rile yourself up. Most people settle for doing it in an elevator, but not you. No, you have to make sure it's a vampire you're playing kissy-face with."
Heat washed through me, pulled by anger and embarrassment. Ivy had said the same thing.
"I do not!"
"Rache," he cajoled, sitting up to match my posture. "Look at yourself. You're an adrenaline junkie. You not only need danger to make good in the bedroom, you need it to get through your normal day."
"Shut up!" I shouted, giving him a backhanded thwack on his shoulder. "I like adventure, that's all. — Kim Harrison

You really can expand the boundaries of your life and do risky things and prove yourself by doing them. — Robyn Davidson

Grimes believed in what he did, with no doubts. Though he was older than me by over a decade, I suddenly felt old. Some things mark your soul, not in years but in blood and pain and selling off parts of yourself to get the bad guys, until you finally look in the mirror and aren't sure which side you're on anymore. There comes a point when having a badge doesn't make you the good guy, it just makes you one of the guys. I needed to be one of the good guys, or what the hell was I doing? — Laurell K. Hamilton

The big problem is that your mind keeps
reminding you of things when you can't do
anything about them. It has no sense of past or future. That means that as soon as you tell yourself that you need to do something, and store it in your RAM, there's a part of you that thinks you should be doing that something all the time. — David Allen

Brancusi made me realise that what I had learned previously - the quick ways of doing things - was all wrong. It is a search you have to enter - into yourself. — Isamu Noguchi

Once you are completely comfortable with charging, then - and only then - will you allow yourself to do things for free. That way if you perform a kindness for another, you will know that you are doing it because you want to, not because you have been manipulated into it or are maneuvering in the hopes of winning their affection. — Stuart Wilde

As an author, you spend a lot of time by yourself in a room making clicky noises. It gets pretty insulated. You realize pretty early on in your career that even if this goes well, you could spend all your life in a room alone. Unless you pick projects that are going to get you out doing things, you're not going to actually live your life. — Christopher Moore

Honestly, Evie," I huffed, flopping back to the centre of my bed and glaring at the ceiling. "Why don't you whine some more instead of actually doing anything?"
"Talking to yourself is the first sign of madness," Arianna volunteered, leaning on the frame of my open door.
"Yeah, so's seeing things no one else can, but people seem to like that about me."
"Good point. Odds are, you've been crazy for years now. I'm probably nothing more than a figment of your imagination."
"If that were true, I'd imagine you as less of a slob."
She sighed. "Isn't it sad that you hate yourself so much you can't even dream up a pleasant roommate?"
"Not as sad as the fact that you admit how bad you suck as one."
Flashing a wicked grin, she narrowed her eyes. " I'd use the term 'suck' sparingly around me. Don't want to go planting ideas in my pretty, dead head."
I threw a pillow at her. — Kiersten White

The very purpose of religion is to control yourself, not to criticize others. Rather, we must criticize ourselves. How much am I doing about my anger? About my attachment, about my hatred, about my pride, my jealousy? These are the things which we must check in daily life. — Dalai Lama

One of the things you're doing when you make art, apart from entertaining yourself and other people, is trying to see what ways of working feel good, what feels right. — Brian Eno

Simply put, if you are not doubting yourself or not thinking of other things that you could be doing instead of the task at hand, you're probably not working hard enough — Dos Remedios, Robert

If you've ever found yourself pushed to the limits of your tolerance ... you find yourself doing some things that, from the outside, can be seen as quite insane. — Brandon Lee

Learn to depend upon yourself by doing things in accordance with your own way of thinking. — Grenville Kleiser

Stay true to yourself because a lot of times women get so wrapped up in doing for a man that we forget to focus on us. A lot of times that is unattractive. They love us because we are independent and focused on the things that make us happy. Because when they see you happy, their happy! — Gabrielle Dennis

I am the anti-trend guy? I don't believe in chasing trends. And before anyone shops, I believe you benefit from doing a closet inventory. Ask yourself what am I wearing, what am I not wearing, and you'll probably discover things you didn't even know you had. — Tim Gunn

I often think of a quote from entrepreneur Jim Rohn: 'You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.' Surround yourself with people who are doing interesting things, who are thinking interesting thoughts, who challenge you to be better, and who come from a diverse set of backgrounds and experiences. That, combined with appropriate moments of 'me' time, provides the perfect breeding ground for great ideas. And whatever you do, don't get hung up on what competitors are doing. Be aware of what's going on in the industry, but don't let it dictate your own creative process. — Alexis Ohanian

I'm satisfied and proud of the things I did - even the bumps and the bruises that I've had on the way. You fall down, you get up, you brush yourself off and you keep going. And that's what we're doing. — Gucci Mane

Charity is just writing checks and not being engaged. Philanthropy, to me, is being engaged, not only with your resources but getting people and yourself really involved and doing things that haven't been done before. — Eli Broad

That's one of the problems with doing anything for a long time. Staying home, for instance. The longer you stay, the more you believe your identity is wrapped up in the people and things around you. You become trapped. It seems as if you fear change because you can't let go of this illusion of yourself as being what? The good granddaughter? The girlfriend who can't choose between her boyfriend and her family? Seems as if your fear of change is really just the same fear of death you mention in your first class. — Suzanne Morrison

You are to make your own way prosperous ... Even God cannot do it for you; you will have to do it yourself by doing the right things; taking right decisions, talking right, thinking right, being at the right place with the right-kind of people and by reading the right materials. — Jaachynma N.E. Agu

It goes back to the if identity becomes your achievement, what do you do, this is what happens? And I do think it leads to psychological disorders. You have to start doing things and stop thinking about yourself. — Greg Gutfeld

But good writers have a reason for doing things the way they do them, and if you tinker with their work, taking it upon yourself to neutralize a slightly eccentric usage or zap a comma or sharpen the emphasis of something that the writer was deliberately keeping obscure, you are not helping. In my experience, the really great writers enjoy the editorial process. They weigh queries, and they accept or reject them for good reasons. They are not defensive. The whole point of having things read before publication is to test their effect on a general reader. You want to make sure when you go out there that the tag on the back of your collar isn't poking up - unless, of course, you are deliberately wearing your clothes inside out. — Mary Norris

It's very hard to stop doing things you're used to doing. You almost have to dismantle yourself and scatter it all around and then put a blindfold on and put it back together so that you avoid old habits. — Tom Waits

Dwindling energy is one of the most boring things about being old. From time to time you get a day when it seems to be restored, and you can't help feeling that you are 'back to normal', but it never lasts. You just have to resign yourself to doing less
or rather, taking more breaks than you used to in whatever you are doing. In my case I fear that what I most often do less of is my duty towards my companion rather than indulgence of my private inclinations. — Diana Athill

At LeakyCon, a young lady asked me how I dealt with bullying. I wasn't able to give her a very good answer, which troubles me. Well, there were lots of shouts of "It gets better" and "Stay strong" and "We love you". But when I put myself back in time to when I was being bullied, none of those things would've helped me. Yes, absolutely it does get better. But when you are being physically and psychologically tortured, it is difficult to remove yourself from the pressingness of the moment at hand. Here's how I dealt with bullying: I cried, I hated myself, I hated my life. I didn't deal with it, I survived it, but I never dealt with it. So here are two tips from someone with lots of experience. 1: It's not about you, it has nothing to do with you, it's about the assholes doing it to you. 2: Your job is not to deal with it, your job is to survive it, which you CAN do because it WILL end. And then yes, it will get better. — Hank Green

Do what you will. Even if you tear yourself apart, most people will continue doing the same things. — Marcus Aurelius

One cannot control the actions of others, but we are responsible for what we do. People say things such as, "I can't do this," "it is not really me," "this makes me uncomfortable," etc. People, simply put, opt out of playing the game or doing so in a way that will make them successful. So get over yourself, and do what you need to do - and what, by the way, others around you are doing, to become more powerful. — Jeffrey Pfeffer

One of the things that I've worked my way out of doing, and I knew that I needed to, was comparing myself to other people. That just poisins everything. It all of a sudden dtermines even clothes you're going to choose to wear that day or what you're going to do with a music production or how you're going to sequence it. It poisinseverything. Your real job in the world is to be you. Comparing yourself to other people I think that hurt me more than anything. Allowing myself to go there so much in my head hurt me. — India.Arie

Position yourself to succeed by doing the other things in your life that rejuvenate you. You can create little islands of time away from your novel that will help preserve your balance. Exhaustion will affect both your writing's quality and your productivity. — Jeff VanderMeer

Don't let yourself make excuses for not doing the things you want to do. — Sam Altman

The challenge is simple: Quitting when you hit the Dip is a bad idea. If the journey you started was worth doing, then quitting when you hit the Dip just wastes the time you've already invested. Quit in the Dip often enough and you'll find yourself becoming a serial quitter, starting many things but accomplishing little. Simple: If you can't make it through the Dip, don't start. If you can embrace that simple rule, you'll be a lot choosier about which journeys you start. — Seth Godin

[To have Faith in Christ] means, of course, trying to do all that He says. There would be no sense in saying you trusted a person if you would not take his advice. Thus if you have really handed yourself over to Him, it must follow that you are trying to obey Him. But trying in a new way, a less worried way. Not doing these things in order to be saved, but because He has begun to save you already. Not hoping to get to Heaven as a reward for your actions, but inevitably wanting to act in a certain way because a first faint gleam of Heaven is already inside you. — C.S. Lewis

Anything you think of doing, however insignificant, should be done immediately. Spur yourself on and carry it through without becoming discouraged. If this becomes an ingrained habit, things you thought were impossible will become possible, and closed doors will open, as you will discover in many ways. — Shinichi Suzuki

As women of the western world, we see our sisters in other lands being raped, maimed and even executed simply for trying to exercise the most basic freedoms, such as taking a bus alone or wearing a bright red sweater. And when we look at our own world, we see that it too still lacks equality for the sexes.
It's a terrible thing to go through one's entire lifetime not getting to do all the things we dream of doing just because others say we're not permitted to do them, and to know that they will hurt us if we try.
But far, far worse than that is when there's not a thing or a person outside that's stopping us from living exactly as we wish, but we stop ourselves; internally we do not give ourselves permission, simply because we're too scared of what will happen if we dare. — PatriciaV. Davis

you knew how small you are and how short a time you have to do what you can, you wouldn't waste time watching five f*cking hours of TV a day. You wouldn't waste time doing a job you hate. You wouldn't waste the little time you have dealing with assholes, feeling sorry for yourself, or being timid about the things you'd really like to do. — Johnny B. Truant

Remember when we met? Before you left, you said you were going to make a fool of yourself over me. That's still what you're worried about. That you'll find yourself doing things you never dreamed of doing, things you laughed at in others, and you'll make a fool of yourself. — Kelley Armstrong

In that six months, so much happened that death seemed, primarily, inconvenient. The trial period was extended. I seem to keep extending it. There are many things to do. There are books to write and naps to take. There are movies to see and scrambled eggs to eat. Life is essentially trivial. You either decide you will take the trite business of life and give yourself the option of doing something really cool, or you decide you will opt for the Grand Epic of eating disorders and dedicate your life to being seriously trivial. — Marya Hornbacher

Life is full of lessons; learn the lessons in life you meet each moment of time well! So many people meet the same things in life time after time, because they fail to know, understand and take real lessons from the same things they always meet time and time again! Day by day, make a consistent effort to improve yourself. Day by day, take consistent steps in wit to avoid doing the same thing that resulted in the same thing in the same way! Life is full of lessons; don't forget to learn the lessons life teaches well, or else you shall leave each moment of your life learning the same life lessons! — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

You have to be careful not to let your fear stop you doing things. It's very exciting to test yourself. — Francesca Annis

Confidence is nothing more than believing in yourself, and believing in yourself is about doing the things you once didn't believe you could do — Steven Aitchison

Doing great things for others is an awesome gift to give yourself. — Robin Sharma

Grace is that thing that shows up to guide you when you've done the first two steps and you're intent on doing something larger than just yourself. That's when all of the sudden things are great. — Tony Robbins

It's amazing the things you realize
when you lose someone:
you get mad at yourself for not
saying the things you could've a million times,
you take for granted the days
spent doing nothing when
you could have been with them.
Anyone can be taken,
at any time in our lives,
but we always wait until they're gone to say
the things we never had the courage to before. — Melody Carlson

You have to push yourself when you're older because it's very easy to fall into the trap. You start to fall apart - you just have to do your best to paste yourself together. I think doing things and being active is very important. When your mind is busy, you don't hurt so much. — Iris Apfel

I can introduce new parts because when you are on stage in front of a very happy audience or people who love what you are doing, you are able to do extraordinary things that you yourself didn't think you could do before. — Rokia Traore

Why are you speaking like this? Are you the one who is to come? Can anything good come out of Nazareth? What sign can you show us? Why does he eat with tax-collectors and sinners? Where did this man get all this wisdom? How can this man give us his flesh to eat? Who are you? Why do you not follow the traditions? Do the authorities think he's the Messiah? Can the Messiah come from Galilee? Why are you behaving unlawfully? Who then is this? Aren't we right to say that you're a Samaritan and have a demon? What do you say about him? By what right are you doing these things? Who is this Son of Man? Should we pay tribute to Caesar? And climactically: Are you the king of the Jews? What is truth? Where are you from? Are you the Messiah, the son of the Blessed One? Then finally, too late for answers, but not too late for irony: Aren't you the Messiah? Save yourself and us! If you're the Messiah, why don't you come down from that cross? — N. T. Wright

With anything in life, I think that's when you start stressing yourself out - when you start worrying about the things that are out of your control. What I can control is being at my best every day and having no regrets at the end of each day. That's what I plan on doing. — Scott Tolzien

Over time I've learned, surprisingly, that it's tremendously hard to get teams to be super ambitious. It turns out most people haven't been educated in this kind of moonshot thinking. They tend to assume that things are impossible, rather than starting from real-world physics and figuring out what's actually possible. It's why we've put so much energy into hiring independent thinkers at Google, and setting big goals. Because if you hire the right people and have big enough dreams, you'll usually get there. And even if you fail, you'll probably learn something important. It's also true that many companies get comfortable doing what they have always done, with a few incremental changes. This kind of incrementalism leads to irrelevance over time, especially in technology, because change tends to be revolutionary not evolutionary. So you need to force yourself to place big bets on the future. — Eric Schmidt

True Christian Living is the willingness to deny yourself and consider pleasing God and obedience to Him to be your highest calling in life no matter what station you are in. The things that you do in secret for God will be of more value in His Sight then the pleasures of this world and doing what people think you should do. — Anya VonderLuft

So stop eating yourself up. Things will go where they're supposed to go if you just let them take their natural course. Despite your best efforts, people are going to be hurt when it's time for them to be hurt. Life is like that. I know I sound like I'm preaching from a pulpit, but it's about time you learned to live like this. You try too hard to make life fit your way of doing things.If you don't want to spend time in an insane asylum, you have to open up a little more and let yourself go with life's natural flow. — Haruki Murakami

There's always pressure, from other people and yourself. If you're happy with the looks you're born with, then what are you going to do your whole life? We keep thinking up new things and finding better ways of doing things because we're not happy with what we're given. — Natalie Portman

When you do not trust yourself, what you feel, and what you know, you will expect people to be who they are not. You will hope against hope that they will do things you already know they cannot do. You will expect them to be who you want them to be rather than trusting what you know about who they are and what they are capable of doing. This is not trust. This is magical thinking, and engaging in it will set you up for a big letdown. Trusting yourself is important when dealing with others because it protects you from repeated violations and devastating heartbreaks. — Iyanla Vanzant

I don't like cleaning or dusting or cooking or doing dishes, or any of those things," I explained to her. "And I don't usually do it. I find it boring, you see."
"Everyone has to do those things," she said.
"Rich people don't," I pointed out.
Juniper laughed, as she often did at things I said in those early days, but at once became quite serious.
"They miss a lot of fun," she said. "But quite apart from that
keeping yourself clean, preparing the food you are going to eat, clearing it away afterward
that's what life's about, Wise Child. When people forget that, or lose touch with it, then they lose touch with other important things as well."
"Men don't do those things."
"Exactly. Also, as you clean the house up, it gives you time to tidy yourself up inside
you'll see. — Monica Furlong

[I]t is useful at times to admit to yourself that you don't know your way and to be open to help from unexpected places. Doing that makes available to you inner and outer energies and allies that arise out of your own soulfulness and selflessness. [...] [G]etting caught up in the normal human tendencies of self-cherishing and arrogance, and ignoring the larger order of things, will ultimately lead to ans impasse in your life in which you are unable to go forward, unable to go back, and unable to turn around. — Jon Kabat-Zinn

Ultimately, it comes down to taste. It comes down to trying to expose yourself to the best things that humans have done and then try to bring those things into what you're doing. Picasso had a saying: good artists copy, great artists steal. And we have always been shameless about stealing great ideas, and I think part of what made the Macintosh great was that the people working on it were musicians and poets and artists and zoologists and historians who also happened to be the best computer scientists in the world. — Steve Jobs

We do so much, we run so quickly, the situation is difficult, and many people say, "Don't just sit there, do something." But doing more things may make the situation worse. So you should say, "Don't just do something, sit there." Sit there, stop, be yourself first, and begin from there. — Thich Nhat Hanh

The garden is one of the two great metaphors for humanity.
The garden is about life and beauty and the impermanence of all living things.
The garden is about feeding your children, providing food for the tribe.
It's part of an urgent territorial drive that we can probably trace back to animals storing food.
It's a competitive display mechanism, like having a prize bull, this greed for the best tomatoes and English tea roses.
It's about winning; about providing society with superior things; and about proving that you have taste, and good values, and you work hard.
And what a wonderful relief, every so often, to know who the enemy is.
Because in the garden, the enemy is everything: the aphids, the weather, time.
And so you pour yourself into it, care so much, and see up close so much birth, and growth, and beauty, and danger, and triumph.
And then everything dies anyway, right?
But you just keep doing it. — Anne Lamott

You need not get at it, for you are it. It will get at you, if you give it a chance. Let go your attachment to the unreal and the real will swiftly and smoothly step into its own. Stop imagining yourself being or doing this or that and the realization that you are the source and heart of all will dawn upon you. With this will come great love which is not choice or predilection, nor attachment, but a power which makes all things love-worthy and lovable. — Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

In acting, you get to explore such an artistic side with different characters to research and learn and explore different things inside yourself and I do that anyway, so I might as well be doing something that I already do, as in a second nature to me, on film. — Gina Carano