Quotelar

John Charles Ryle (1816–1900), the first Bishop of Liverpool, was a prominent figure in 19th-century English evangelicalism. Best known for “Holiness,” a seminal work on Christian living, he emphasized the importance of personal holiness and a vibrant relationship with Christ. Ryle’s “Practical Religion” offers practical advice on various aspects of Christian life, while his “Expository Thoughts on the Gospels” provides insightful commentaries. Additionally, “Christian Leaders of the Eighteenth Century” profiles influential figures from that era. Ryle’s writings, marked by biblical clarity and doctrinal soundness, continue to impact evangelical Christianity, emphasizing the timeless relevance of holiness and the significance of a personal connection with Jesus. His legacy endures through these enduring works that inspire and guide believers in their spiritual journeys.

J. C. Ryle Quotes

1. “Prayer is the mightiest weapon that God has placed in our hands.”
— J. C. Ryle

2. “Trials are intended to make us think, to wean us from the world, to send us to the Bible, to drive us to our knees.”
— J. C. Ryle

3. “The heart that has really tasted the grace of Christ, will instinctively hate sin.”
— J. C. Ryle

4. “The highest form of selfishness is that of the man who is content to go to heaven alone.”
— J. C. Ryle

5. “To say that we are sorry for our sins is mere hypocrisy, unless we show that we are really sorry for them, by giving them up. Doing is the very life of repentance.”
— J. C. Ryle

6. “There is a common, worldly kind of Christianity in this day, which many have, and think they have enough-a cheap Christianity which offends nobody, and requires no sacrifice-which costs nothing, and is worth nothing.”
— J. C. Ryle

7. “Never let us be guilty of sacrificing any portion of truth on the altar of peace.”
— J. C. Ryle

8. “Tomorrow is the devil’s day, but today is God’s. Satan does not care how spiritual your intentions are, or how holy your resolutions, if only they are determined to be done tomorrow.”
— J. C. Ryle

9. “The best of men are men at best.”
— J. C. Ryle

10. “Let us seek friends that will stir up our prayers, our Bible reading, our use of time, and our salvation.”
— J. C. Ryle

11. “HATE SIN! Instead of loving it, cleaving to it, excusing it, playing with it, we ought to hate it with a deadly hatred.”
— J. C. Ryle

12. “Holiness is the habit of being of one mind with God, according as we find His mind described in Scripture. It is the habit of agreeing in God’s judgment, hating what He hates, loving what He loves, and measuring everything in this world by the standard of His Word.”
— J. C. Ryle

13. “Obedience is the only reality. It is faith visible, faith acting, and faith manifest. It is the test of real discipleship among the Lord’s people.”
— J. C. Ryle

14. “Election is always to sanctification. Where there is no visible fruit of sanctification, we may be sure there is no election.”
— J. C. Ryle

15. “A religion that costs nothing is worth nothing. A cheap Christianity, without a cross, will prove in the end a useless Christianity, without a crown.”
— J. C. Ryle

16. “Health is a good thing; but sickness is far better, if it leads us to God.”
— J. C. Ryle

17. “Christ is never fully valued, until sin is clearly seen. We must know the depth and malignity of our disease, in order to appreciate the great Physician.”
— J. C. Ryle

18. “Do not glory in your own faith, your own feelings, your own knowledge, or your own diligence. Glory in nothing but Christ.”
— J. C. Ryle

19. “Look not to yourselves! You are by nature wretched, miserable, poor, blind and naked. Look simply unto Jesus.”
— J. C. Ryle

20. “No salvation without regeneration – no spiritual life without a new birth – no heaven without a new heart.”
— J. C. Ryle

21. “Oh, dear friend, if you love your children, I charge you, do not let the early impression of a habit of prayer slip by. If you train your children to do anything, train them, at least, to have a habit of prayer.”
— J. C. Ryle

22. “No one ever reached heaven without repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.”
— J. C. Ryle

23. “Except a man be born again, he will wish one day he had never been born at all.”
— J. C. Ryle

24. “Better to confess Christ 1000 times now and be despised by men, than be disowned by Christ before God on the day of Judgment.”
— J. C. Ryle

25. “Pride is the oldest and most common of sins. Humility is the rarest and most beautiful of graces.”
— J. C. Ryle

26. “Prayer will consume sin, or sin will choke prayer.”
— J. C. Ryle

27. “Blessed are they who feel like pilgrims and strangers in this life, and whose best things are all to come!”
— J. C. Ryle

28. “We must wrestle earnestly in prayer, like men contending with a deadly enemy for life.”
— J. C. Ryle

29. “A converted man will not wish to go to heaven alone.”
— J. C. Ryle

30. “Sin forsaken is one of the best evidences of sin forgiven.”
— J. C. Ryle

31. “God is far more willing to save sinners than sinners are to be saved.”
— J. C. Ryle

32. “Fear not because your prayer is stammering, your words feeble, and your language poor. Jesus can understand you.”
— J. C. Ryle

33. “Look to the cross, think of the cross, meditate on the cross, and then go and set your affections on the world if you can.”
— J. C. Ryle

34. “Let us beware of repentance without evidence.”
— J. C. Ryle

35. “Of all the doctrines of the Bible none is so offensive to human nature as the doctrine of God’s sovereignty.”
— J. C. Ryle

36. “O Christian, look up and take comfort. Jesus has prepared a place for you, and those who follow Him shall never perish, neither shall anyone pluck them out of His hands.”
— J. C. Ryle

37. “I believe it to be clear evidence of the Spirit’s presence when the Word of God is really precious to a person’s soul.”
— J. C. Ryle

38. “Unity without the gospel is a worthless unity; it is the very unity of hell.”
— J. C. Ryle

39. “We must give up the vain idea of trying to please everybody. That is impossible, and the attempt is a mere waste of time. We must be content to walk in Christ’s steps, and let the world say what it likes.”
— J. C. Ryle

40. “To be prayerless is to be without God, without Christ, without grace, without hope, and without heaven.”
— J. C. Ryle

41. “Good hymns are an immense blessing to the Church. They train people for heaven, where praise is one of the principal occupations.”
— J. C. Ryle

42. “Hell itself is truth known too late.”
— J. C. Ryle

43. “God does not look at riches, titles, education, or beauty. There is only one thing that God does look at, and that is the soul.”
— J. C. Ryle

44. “A trial is an instrument by which our Father in heaven makes Christians more holy.”
— J. C. Ryle

45. “No time is so well spent in every day as that which we spend upon our knees.”
— J. C. Ryle

46. “There is only one door, one bridge, one ladder, between earth and heaven – the crucified Son of God.”
— J. C. Ryle

47. “Let your Christianity be so unmistakable, your eye so single, your heart so whole, your walk so straightforward, that all who see you may have no doubt whose you are, and whom you serve.”
— J. C. Ryle

48. “The children of God all have a cross to bear. A suffering Savior generally has suffering disciples.”
— J. C. Ryle

49. “We have the truth and we need not be afraid to say so.”
— J. C. Ryle

50. “Christ’s death is the Christian’s life. Christ’s cross is the Christian’s title to heaven. Christ “lifted up” and put to shame on Calvary is the ladder by which Christians “enter into the holiest,” and are at length landed in glory.”
— J. C. Ryle

51. “The true cure for self-righteousness is self-knowledge.”
— J. C. Ryle

52. “Beware of self-righteousness in every possible shape and form. Some people get as much harm from their “virtues” as others do from their sins.”
— J. C. Ryle

53. “Let us receive nothing, believe nothing, follow nothing which is not in the Bible, nor can be proved by the Bible.”
— J. C. Ryle

54. “We are all naturally self-righteous. It is the family disease of all the children of Adam.”
— J. C. Ryle

55. “Nothing so hardens the heart of man as a barren familiarity with sacred things.”
— J. C. Ryle

56. “What is the best safeguard against false doctrine? The Bible regularly read, regularly prayed over, regularly studied.”
— J. C. Ryle

57. “There will be no universal peace until the Prince of Peace appears.”
— J. C. Ryle

58. “The blood of Christ can cleanse away all sin. But we must ‘plead guilty’ before God can declare us innocent.”
— J. C. Ryle

59. “True Christianity is not merely believing a certain set of dry abstract propositions: it is to live in daily personal communication with an actual living person – Jesus Christ.”
— J. C. Ryle

60. “Your trials, crosses, and conflicts are all temporary.”
— J. C. Ryle

61. “Prayer is the very life-breath of true Christianity.”
— J. C. Ryle

62. “Do something, by God’s help, to make heaven more full and hell more empty.”
— J. C. Ryle

63. “Our Lord has many weak children in his family, many dull pupils in his school, many raw soldiers in his army, many lame sheep in his flock. Yet he bears with them all, and casts none away. Happy is that Christian who has learned to do likewise with his brethren.”
— J. C. Ryle

64. “Naked we came upon earth, and naked we go forth, and of all our possessions, we can carry nothing with us.”
— J. C. Ryle

65. “The best of men are only men at their very best. Patriarchs, prophets, and apostles, – martyrs, fathers, reformers, puritans, – all are sinners, who need a Savior: holy, useful, honorable in their place – but sinners after all.”
— J. C. Ryle

66. “Since Satan can’t destroy the gospel, he has too often neutralized its usefulness by addition, subtraction or substitution.”
— J. C. Ryle

67. “It is neglect of the Bible which makes so many a prey to the first false teacher whom they hear.”
— J. C. Ryle

68. “We must read our Bibles like men digging for hidden treasure.”
— J. C. Ryle

69. “The harvest of the Lord’s field is seldom ripened by sunshine only. It must go through its days of wind, rain and storm.”
— J. C. Ryle

70. “The nearer we live to God while we live, the more ready we will be to dwell forever in His presence when we die.”
— J. C. Ryle

71. “Our prayers may be weak, stammering, and poor in our eyes. But if they come from a right heart, God understands them. Such prayers are His delight.”
— J. C. Ryle

72. “Sanctification is the outcome and inseparable consequence of regeneration. He who is born again and made a new creature receives a new nature and a new principle and always lives a new life.”
— J. C. Ryle

73. “Beware of manufacturing a God of your own: a God who is all mercy, but not just. Such a God is an idol of your own.”
— J. C. Ryle

74. “Wealth is no mark of God’s favor. Poverty is no mark of God’s displeasure.”
— J. C. Ryle

75. “The fear of punishment, the desire of reward, the sense of duty, are all useful arguments, in their way, to persuade people to holiness. But they are all weak and powerless, until a person loves Christ.”
— J. C. Ryle

76. “Happiness does not depend on outward circumstances, but on the state of the heart.”
— J. C. Ryle

77. “A Christian is a walking sermon. They preach far more than a minister does, for they preach all week long.”
— J. C. Ryle

78. “The only way to be really happy in such a world as this, is to be ever casting all our cares on God.”
— J. C. Ryle

79. “Meekness is one of the brightest graces which can adorn the Christian character.”
— J. C. Ryle

80. “There is more to be learned at the foot of the Cross than anywhere else in the world.”
— J. C. Ryle

81. “Let us be real, honest, and sincere in our Christianity. We cannot deceive an all-seeing God.”
— J. C. Ryle

82. “The Word of God is ROCK. All else is sand.”
— J. C. Ryle

83. “The key to understanding the Bible is Jesus Christ.”
— J. C. Ryle

84. “We should no more tolerate false doctrine that we would tolerate sin.”
— J. C. Ryle

85. “What would you expect? Sin will not come to you saying, ‘I am sin.’ It would do little harm if it did. Sin always seems ‘good, pleasant and desirable’ at the time of arrival.”
— J. C. Ryle

86. “How can we love sin, when we remember that because of our sins Jesus died?”
— J. C. Ryle

87. “We know nothing of humility by nature, for we are all born proud.”
— J. C. Ryle

88. “People fall in private, long before they fall in public. The tree falls with a great crash, but the secret decay which accounts for it, is often not discovered until it is down on the ground.”
— J. C. Ryle

89. “Faith is to the soul what life is to the body. Prayer is to faith what breath is to the body. How a person can live and not breathe is past my comprehension, and how a person can believe and not pray is past my comprehension too.”
— J. C. Ryle

90. “Take away the cross of Christ, and the Bible is a dark book.”
— J. C. Ryle

91. “A zealous man feels that like a lamp he is made to burn; and if consumed in burning, he has but done the work for which God appointed him. Such a one will always find a sphere for his zeal. If he cannot preach and work and give money, he will cry and sigh and pray.”
— J. C. Ryle

92. “It was the whole Trinity, which at the beginning of creation said, “Let us make man”. It was the whole Trinity again, which at the beginning of the Gospel seemed to say, “Let us save man”.”
— J. C. Ryle

93. “Prosperity is a great mercy, but adversity is a greater one, if it brings us to Christ.”
— J. C. Ryle

94. “Beware of letting small faults pass unnoticed under the idea it is a little one. There are no little things in training children; all are important. Little weeds need plucking up as much as any. Leave them alone and they will soon be great.”
— J. C. Ryle

95. “The love of Christ towards His people is a deep well which has no bottom.”
— J. C. Ryle

96. “If you and sin are friends, you and God are not yet reconciled.”
— J. C. Ryle

97. “The beginning of the way to heaven, is to feel that we are on the way to hell.”
— J. C. Ryle

98. “Praying and sinning will never live together in the same heart. Prayer will consume sin, or sin will choke prayer.”
— J. C. Ryle

99. “Assurance of hope is more than life, it is health, strength, power, vigor, activity, energy, manliness, beauty.”
— J. C. Ryle

100. “The eye of God! Think of that. Everywhere, in every house, in every field, in every room, in every company, alone or in a crowd, the eye of God is always upon you.”
— J. C. Ryle

101. “God has linked holiness and happiness; and what God has joined together we must not think to put asunder.”
— J. C. Ryle

102. “Without a thorough conviction of sin, men may seem to come to Jesus and follow Him for a season, but they will soon fall away and return to the world.”
— J. C. Ryle

103. “Let it never surprise true Christians if they are slandered and misrepresented in this world. They must not expect to fare better than their Lord.”
— J. C. Ryle

104. “True Christians delight to read the Scriptures because they tell them about their beloved Savior.”
— J. C. Ryle

105. “Until we give God our heart, we give Him nothing at all.”
— J. C. Ryle

106. “Do we profess to love Christ? Then let us show it by our lives.”
— J. C. Ryle

107. “Every fresh act of sin lessens fear and remorse, hardens our hearts, blunts the edge of our conscience, and increases our evil inclination.”
— J. C. Ryle

108. “God knew what we were before conversion – wicked, guilty, and defiled; yet He loved us. He knows what we will be after conversion – weak, erring, and frail; yet He loves us.”
— J. C. Ryle

109. “We may love money without having it, just as we may have money without loving it.”
— J. C. Ryle

110. “Nothing perhaps affects man’s character more than the company he keeps.”
— J. C. Ryle

111. “Let us cleave to Christ more closely, love Him more heartily, live to Him more thoroughly, copy Him more exactly, confess Him more boldly, and follow Him more fully.”
— J. C. Ryle

112. “Are you tempted? Look unto Jesus. Are you afflicted? Look unto Jesus. Do all speak evil of you? Look unto Jesus. Do you feel cold, dull, and backsliding? Look unto Jesus.”
— J. C. Ryle

113. “We ought to regard the sacrament of baptism with reverence. An ordinance of which the Lord Jesus Himself partook, is not to be lightly esteemed. An ordinance to which the great Head of the Church submitted, ought to be ever honorable in the eyes of professing Christians.”
— J. C. Ryle

114. “Backsliding, generally first begins with neglect of private prayer.”
— J. C. Ryle

115. “The parent who tries to train without setting a good example is building with one hand, and pulling down with the other.”
— J. C. Ryle

116. “Doctrine is useless if it is not accompanied by a holy life. It is worse than useless; it does positive harm. Something of ‘the image of Christ’ must be seen and observed by others in our private life, and habits, and character, and doings.”
— J. C. Ryle

117. “According to the men of the world, few are going to hell; According to the Bible, few are going to heaven.”
— J. C. Ryle

118. “What is the reason that some believers are so much brighter and holier than others? I believe the difference, in nineteen cases out of twenty, arises from different habits about private prayer. I believe that those who are not eminently holy pray little, and those who are eminently holy pray much.”
— J. C. Ryle

119. “If you want to find out how much someone loves you, find out how much they pray for you.”
— J. C. Ryle

120. “No prayers can be heard which do not come from a forgiving heart.”
— J. C. Ryle

121. “It must not content us to take our bodies to church if we leave our hearts at home.”
— J. C. Ryle

122. “Hearken, my believing reader. What is the cause of your weakness? Is it not because the fountain of life is little used? Is it not because you are resting on old experiences, and not daily gathering new manna – daily drawing new strength from Christ?”
— J. C. Ryle

123. “A true Christian is one who has not only peace of conscience, but war within. He may be known by his warfare as well as by his peace.”
— J. C. Ryle

124. “Knowledge of the Bible never comes by intuition. It can only be obtained by diligent, regular, daily, attentive reading.”
— J. C. Ryle

125. “Faith in the Lord Jesus is the only sure medicine for troubled hearts.”
— J. C. Ryle

126. “Whatever you read, read the Bible first. Beware of bad books: there are plenty in this day. Take heed what you read.”
— J. C. Ryle

127. “Children are very quick observers; very quick in seeing through some kinds of hypocrisy, very quick in finding out what you really think and feel, very quick in adopting all your ways and opinions. You will often discover that, as the father is, so is the son.”
— J. C. Ryle

128. “The rulers of the earth plan, and scheme, and make laws, and change laws, and war, and pull down one, and raise up another. But they little think that they rule only by the will of Jesus and that nothing happens without the permission of the Lamb of God.”
— J. C. Ryle

129. “The love of our Lord Jesus Christ towards sinners is strikingly shown in His steady purpose of heart to die for them.”
— J. C. Ryle

130. “Live as if you thought that Christ might come at any time.”
— J. C. Ryle

131. “I fear we are in danger of forgetting that to HAVE the Bible is one thing, and to READ it quite another.”
— J. C. Ryle

132. “Troublous times, departures from the faith, evil men waxing worse and worse, love waxing cold, are things distinctly predicted.”
— J. C. Ryle

133. “The cause of Christ does not need less working, but it does need among the workers, more praying.”
— J. C. Ryle

134. “True worship leads to a more full knowledge of self, God, heaven, duty, doctrine, practice and experience.”
— J. C. Ryle

135. “It is not always those who have the most eminent gifts who are the most successful laborers for God. It is generally those who keep up closest communion with Christ and are most constant in prayer.”
— J. C. Ryle

136. “Laughter, ridicule, opposition and persecution are often the only reward which Christ’s followers get from the world.”
— J. C. Ryle

137. “He that would be conformed to Christ’s image, and become a Christ-like man, must be constantly studying Christ Himself.”
— J. C. Ryle

138. “We are all so sunk in sin, and so wedded to the world, that we would never turn to God and seek salvation, unless He first called us by His grace. Without a divine call, no one can be saved.”
— J. C. Ryle

139. “Let us strive, every year we live, to become more deeply acquainted with Scripture.”
— J. C. Ryle

140. “The devil has more knowledge than any of us, and yet is no better for it.”
— J. C. Ryle

141. “The work of the preacher resembles that of the sower. Like the sower, the preacher must sow good seed, the Word of God.”
— J. C. Ryle

142. “The temple in which the Lord Jesus delights most, is a broken and contrite heart, renewed by the Holy Spirit.”
— J. C. Ryle

143. “If you profess to be a child of God, leave it to the Lord Jesus to sanctify you in His own way.”
— J. C. Ryle

144. “There is one subject in religion, about which you can never know too much. That subject is Jesus Christ the Lord.”
— J. C. Ryle

145. “Men fall in private long before they fall in public.”
— J. C. Ryle

146. “If you love Christ, never be ashamed to let others see it and know it. Speak for Him. Witness for Him. Live for Him.”
— J. C. Ryle

147. “No one ever said at the end of his days; ‘I have read my bible too much, I have thought of God too much, I have prayed too much, I have been too careful with my soul’”
— J. C. Ryle

148. “Conversion is not putting a man in an armchair and taking him easily to heaven. It is the beginning of a mighty conflict, in which it costs much to win the victory.”
— J. C. Ryle

149. “The world’s idea of greatness is to rule, but Christian greatness consists in serving.”
— J. C. Ryle

150. “If God has given His Son to die for us, let us beware of doubting His kindness and love in any painful providence of our daily life.”
— J. C. Ryle

John Wooden (1910-2010) was an iconic American basketball coach, widely regarded as one of the greatest in the sport’s history. Born in Indiana, Wooden played college basketball at Purdue before transitioning to coaching. His most significant contributions came as the head coach of the UCLA Bruins from 1948 to 1975, where he achieved unparalleled success, winning ten NCAA national championships, including an unprecedented seven consecutive titles from 1967 to 1973. Wooden’s coaching philosophy centered on teamwork, discipline, and character development, as outlined in his “Pyramid of Success.” Beyond basketball, he became a respected motivational speaker and author. Wooden’s legacy extends beyond his remarkable coaching record, influencing generations of athletes and leaders with his principles of leadership and integrity. He passed away in 2010, leaving an enduring impact on the sport and the lives he touched.

John Wooden Quotes

1. “The true test of a man’s character is what he does when no one is watching.”
— John Wooden

2. “Failing to prepare is preparing to fail.”
— John Wooden

3. “Make every day your masterpiece. ”
— John Wooden

4. “If you don’t have time to do it right, when will you have the time to do it over?”
— John Wooden

5. “Success is peace of mind in knowing you did your best.”
— John Wooden

6. “Success is peace of mind which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you did your best to become the best you are capable of becoming.”
— John Wooden

7. “Don’t let yesterday take up too much of today.”
— John Wooden

8. “Good things take time, as they should. We shouldn’t expect good things to happen overnight. Actually, getting something too easily or too soon can cheapen the outcome.”
— John Wooden

9. “Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.”
— John Wooden

10. “Be quick, but don’t hurry.”
— John Wooden

11. “Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.”
— John Wooden

12. “Things turn out best for those who make best of how things turn out.”
— John Wooden

13. “Discipline yourself and others won’t need to.”
— John Wooden

14. “Champions never complain, they are too busy getting better.”
— John Wooden

15. “Confidence comes from being prepared.”
— John Wooden

16. “Ability may get you to the top, but it takes character to keep you there.”
— John Wooden

17. “If you lose self-control everything will fall.”
— John Wooden

18. “You are not a failure until you start blaming others for your mistakes.”
— John Wooden

19. “It’s the little details that are vital. Little things make big things happen.”
— John Wooden

20. “Don’t let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do. ”
— John Wooden

21. “Success travels in the company of very hard work. There is no trick, no easy way.”
— John Wooden

22. “You can always do more than you think you can.”
— John Wooden

23. “Champions are brilliant at the basics.”
— John Wooden

24. “Be true to yourself. Make each day your masterpiece. Help others. Drink deeply from good books. Make friendship a fine art. Build a shelter against a rainy day. Pray for guidance and give thanks for your blessings every day.”
— John Wooden

25. “It is amazing how much can be accomplished if no one cares who gets the credit.”
— John Wooden

26. “Don’t let making a living prevent you from making a life.”
— John Wooden

27. “Flexibility is the key to stability.”
— John Wooden

28. “Don’t mistake activity with achievement.”
— John Wooden

29. “Never make excuses. Your friends don’t need them and your foes won’t believe them.”
— John Wooden

30. “Failure is not fatal, but failure to change might be.”
— John Wooden

31. “Make each day your masterpiece. Life is now. Life is not later on.”
— John Wooden

32. “Listen if you want to be heard.”
— John Wooden

33. “Success comes from knowing that you did your best to become the best that you are capable of becoming.”
— John Wooden

34. “You are no better than anyone else and no one is better than you.”
— John Wooden

35. “There is a choice you have to make in everything you do. So keep in mind that in the end, the choice you make, makes you.”
— John Wooden

36. “Give me 100 percent. You can’t make up for a poor effort today by giving 110 percent tomorrow. You don’t have 110 percent. You only have 100 percent, and that’s what I want from you right now.”
— John Wooden

37. “Being a role model is the most powerful form of educating.”
— John Wooden

38. “Happiness begins where selfishness ends.”
— John Wooden

39. “It’s what you learn after you know it all that counts.”
— John Wooden

40. “You can’t let praise or criticism get to you. It’s a weakness to get caught up in either one.”
— John Wooden

41. “Talent is God given. Be humble. Fame is man-given. Be grateful. Conceit is self-given. Be careful.”
— John Wooden

42. “You can’t live a perfect day until you do something for someone who will never be able to repay you.”
— John Wooden

43. “Five years from now, you’re the same person except for the people you’ve met and the books you’ve read.”
— John Wooden

44. “The best thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother.”
— John Wooden

45. “The eight laws of learning are explanation, demonstration, imitation, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition.”
— John Wooden

46. “Winning takes talent, to repeat takes character.”
— John Wooden

47. “Being average means you are as close to the bottom as you are to the top.”
— John Wooden

48. “Seek opportunities to show you care. The smallest gestures often make the biggest difference.”
— John Wooden

49. “Team spirit means you are willing to sacrifice personal considerations for the welfare of all. That defines a team player.”
— John Wooden

50. “There is nothing stronger than gentleness.”
— John Wooden

51. “If we fail to adapt, we fail to move forward.”
— John Wooden

52. “A coach is someone who can give correction without causing resentment.”
— John Wooden

53. “Stay the course. When thwarted try again; harder; smarter. Persevere relentlessly.”
— John Wooden

54. “Without proper self-evaluation, failure is inevitable.”
— John Wooden

55. “Be observing constantly. Stay open-minded. Be eager to learn and improve.”
— John Wooden

56. “Young people need models, not critics.”
— John Wooden

57. “Never lie; never cheat; never steal. Don’t whine; don’t complain; don’t make excuses.”
— John Wooden

58. “Kindness makes for much better teamwork.”
— John Wooden

59. “If we magnified blessings as much as we magnify disappointments, we would all be much happier.”
— John Wooden

60. “Apply yourself everyday to just becoming a little bit better.”
— John Wooden

61. “Perform at your best when your best is required. Your best is required each day.”
— John Wooden

62. “Tell the truth. That way you don’t have to remember a story.”
— John Wooden

63. “It takes time to create excellence. If it could be done quickly, more people would do it.”
— John Wooden

64. “All of life is peaks and valleys. Don’t let the peaks get too high and the valleys too low.”
— John Wooden

65. “If you stay intent and your ability warrants it, you will eventually reach the top of the mountain.”
— John Wooden

66. “Don’t whine, complain, or make excuses.”
— John Wooden

67. “A player who makes a team great is more valuable than a great player. Losing yourself in the group, for the good of the group, that’s teamwork.”
— John Wooden

68. “Adaptability is being able to adjust to any situation at any given time.”
— John Wooden

69. “If you’re not making mistakes, then you’re not doing anything. I’m positive that a doer makes mistakes.”
— John Wooden

70. “Today is the only day. Yesterday is gone.”
— John Wooden

71. “Don’t measure yourself by what you have accomplished, but by what you should have accomplished with your ability.”
— John Wooden

72. “Fairness is giving all people the treatment they earn and deserve. It doesn’t mean treating everyone alike.”
— John Wooden

73. “There is no substitute for work. Worthwhile results come from hard work and careful planning.”
— John Wooden

74. “You haven’t taught until they’ve learned.”
— John Wooden

75. “Great leaders are always out front with a banner, instead of behind with a whip.”
— John Wooden

76. “If you do enough small things right, big things can happen.”
— John Wooden

77. “Whatever you do in life, surround yourself with smart people who’ll argue with you.”
— John Wooden

78. “Never try to be better than somebody else. But most importantly, never cease trying to be the best you can be.”
— John Wooden

79. “Respect a man, and he will do all the more.”
— John Wooden

80. “You have to apply yourself each day to becoming a little better. By becoming a little better each and every day, over a period of time, you will become a lot better.”
— John Wooden

81. “The more concerned we become over the things we can’t control, the less we will do with the things we can control.”
— John Wooden

82. “Respect every opponent, but fear none.”
— John Wooden

83. “A strong leader accepts blame and gives the credit. A weak leader gives blame and accepts the credit.”
— John Wooden

84. “Leadership is the ability to get individuals to work together for the common good and the best possible results while at the same time letting them know they did it themselves.”
— John Wooden

85. “Don’t permit fear of failure to prevent effort. We are all imperfect and will fail on occasions, but fear of failure is the greatest failure of all.”
— John Wooden

86. “There are no big things, only a logical accumulation of little things done at a very high standard of performance.”
— John Wooden

87. “Practice self-discipline and keep emotions under control. Good judgment and common sense are essential.”
— John Wooden

88. “If you get too engrossed and involved and concerned in regard to things over which you have no control, it will adversely affect the things over which you have control.”
— John Wooden

89. “It’s not how big you are, it’s how big you play.”
— John Wooden

90. “Never lie, never cheat, never steal.”
— John Wooden

91. “Big things are accomplished only through the perfection of minor details.”
— John Wooden

92. “There is no more powerful leadership tool than your own personal example.”
— John Wooden

93. “The team that makes the most mistakes usually wins, because doers make mistakes.”
— John Wooden

94. “Having the courage to make decisions and take action. Never be afraid to fail. You have nothing to fear if you have prepared to the best of your ability.”
— John Wooden

95. “The importance of repetition until automaticity cannot be overstated. Repetition is the key to learning.”
— John Wooden

96. “Your reputation is what you’re perceived to be, Your character is what you really are.”
— John Wooden

97. “Pray for guidance and give thanks for your blessings everyday.”
— John Wooden

98. “Promise yourself you will talk health, happiness, and prosperity as often as possible. Promise to think only of the best, to work only for the best, and to expect only the best in yourself and others. Promise to forget the mistakes of the past and press on to greater achievements in the future.”
— John Wooden

99. “Just do the best you can. No one can do more than that.”
— John Wooden

100. “It’s too late for preparation when opportunity strikes.”
— John Wooden

101. “We can agree to disagree, but we don’t need to be disagreeable.”
— John Wooden

102. “There is no great fun, satisfaction, or joy derived from doing something that’s easy.”
— John Wooden

103. “The best way to improve your team is to improve yourself.”
— John Wooden

104. “When you improve a little each day, eventually big things occur.”
— John Wooden

105. “When it’s over and you look in the mirror, did you do the best you were capable of? If yes, you will probably be ok with the outcome.”
— John Wooden

106. “We will begin by learning how to tie our shoes.”
— John Wooden

107. “When opportunity comes it is too late to prepare.”
— John Wooden

108. “Teamwork is not a preference, it is a requirement.”
— John Wooden

109. “Details create success.”
— John Wooden

110. “It’s not so important who starts the game but who finishes it.”
— John Wooden

111. “Don’t give up on your dreams, or your dreams will give up on you.”
— John Wooden

112. “Players with fight never lose a game, they just run out of time.”
— John Wooden

113. “Ability is a poor man’s wealth.”
— John Wooden

114. “Make sure that team members know they are working with you, not for you.”
— John Wooden

115. “Discipline of others isn’t punishment. You discipline to help, to improve, to correct, to prevent, not to punish, humiliate, or retaliate.”
— John Wooden

116. “Good coaching is about leadership and instilling respect in your players. Dictators lead through fear – good coaches do not.”
— John Wooden

117. “Strive to accomplish the very best you are capable of. Nothing less than your best effort will suffice.”
— John Wooden

118. “First be the best and then be first.”
— John Wooden

119. “Adversity often produces an unexpected opportunity. Look for it ! Appreciate and utilize it! This is difficult to do if you’re feeling sorry for yourself because you’re faced with adversity.”
— John Wooden

120. “You will never outperform your inner circle.”
— John Wooden

121. “Why can’t we have patience and expect good things to take time?”
— John Wooden

122. “The best competition I have is against myself to become better.”
— John Wooden

123. “A mistake is valuable if you do four things with it: recognize it, admit it, learn from it, forget it.”
— John Wooden

124. “Don’t look for the big, quick improvement. Seek the small improvement one day at time. That’s the only way it happens-and when it happens, it lasts.”
— John Wooden

125. “There is no substitute for hard work. If you’re looking for the easy way, if you’re looking for the trick, you might get by for a while, but you will not be developing the talents that lie within you. There is simply no substitute for work.”
— John Wooden

126. “Cooperation – To get cooperation, you must give cooperation. Always seek to find the best way rather than insisting on your own way.”
— John Wooden

127. “You can’t do anything about yesterday, and the only way to improve tomorrow is by what you do right now.”
— John Wooden

128. “Understand there is a price to be paid for achieving anything of significance. You must be willing to pay the price.”
— John Wooden

129. “The score will take care of itself when you take care of the effort that precedes the score.”
— John Wooden

130. “The time to prepare isn’t after you have been given the opportunity. It’s long before that opportunity arises. Once the opportunity arrives, it’s too late to prepare.”
— John Wooden

131. “Loyalty is a cohesive force that forges individuals into a team.”
— John Wooden

132. “Helping others is perhaps the greatest joy! You cannot have a perfect day without helping others with no thought of getting something in return.”
— John Wooden

133. “Although there is no progress without change, not all change is progress.”
— John Wooden

134. “Rest when you need to, but never quit.”
— John Wooden

135. “I’m not afraid to die.”
— John Wooden

136. “The purpose is to help, to prevent, to correct, to improve, rather than to punish. Criticism is not meant to punish, but rather to correct something that is preventing better results. The only goal is improvement.”
— John Wooden

137. “As long as you try your best, you are never a failure. That is, unless you blame others.”
— John Wooden

138. “A life not lived for others is not a life, a game not played for others is not a game.”
— John Wooden

139. “Climb the mountain so you can see the world, not so the world can see you. Focus all your effort on what is in your power to control.”
— John Wooden

140. “Good values are like a magnet – they attract good people.”
— John Wooden

141. “Promise to be too large for worry, too noble for anger, too strong for fear, and too happy to permit trouble to press on you.”
— John Wooden

142. “Remember this your lifetime through: Tomorrow there will be more to do. And failure waits for all who stay With some success made yesterday. Tomorrow you must try once more, And even harder than before.”
— John Wooden

143. “Remember this, the choices you make in life, make you.”
— John Wooden

144. “Confidence – Poise and confidence are not possible unless you have prepared correctly. Failing to prepare is preparing to fail. Poise and confidence are a natural result of proper preparation.”
— John Wooden

145. “Perfection is impossibility but striving for perfection is not. Do the best you can. That is what counts.”
— John Wooden

146. “The most important key to achieving great success is to decide upon your goal and launch, get started, take action, move.”
— John Wooden

147. “Cervantes said the journey’s better than the end. Practices, to me, were the journey.”
— John Wooden

148. “Hardship brings people closer together if you share it.”
— John Wooden

149. “What you do in practice is going to determine your level of success. I used to tell my players, ‘You have to give 100 percent every day. Whatever you don’t give, you can’t make up for tomorrow. If you give only 75 percent today, you can’t give 125 percent tomorrow to make up for it.’”
— John Wooden

150. “Make a decision! Failure to act is often the biggest failure of all.”
— John Wooden

John Lennon, born on October 9, 1940, in Liverpool, England, was a legendary English musician, singer, and songwriter. Co-founder of the Beatles, one of the most influential bands in history, Lennon played a pivotal role in shaping the landscape of popular music. Known for his songwriting partnership with Paul McCartney, Lennon’s compositions, such as “Imagine” and “Give Peace a Chance,” reflected his commitment to peace and social justice. The Beatles achieved unprecedented success before their breakup in 1970. Lennon continued a solo career, often collaborating with his wife, Yoko Ono. Tragically, he was assassinated outside his New York City apartment on December 8, 1980, leaving behind an enduring legacy as a musical genius and advocate for peace. John Lennon’s impact on music and culture remains profound, making him an iconic figure in the history of rock and roll.

John Lennon Quotes

1. “Everything will be okay in the end. If it’s not okay, it’s not the end.”
— John Lennon

2. “A dream you dream alone is only a dream. A dream you dream together is reality.”
— John Lennon

3. “Time you enjoy wasting, was not wasted.”
— John Lennon

4. “A mistake is only an error. It becomes a mistake when you fail to correct it.”
— John Lennon

5. “Being honest may not get you a lot of friends but it’ll always get you the right ones.”
— John Lennon

6. “There are no problems, only solutions.”
— John Lennon

7. “You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. I hope someday you’ll join us. And the world will live as one.”
— John Lennon

8. “The more real you get the more unreal the world gets. ”
— John Lennon

9. “Count your age by friends, not years. Count your life by smiles, not tears.”
— John Lennon

10. “When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy’. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life.”
— John Lennon

11. “As usual, there is a great woman behind every idiot.”
— John Lennon

12. “Reality leaves a lot to the imagination.”
— John Lennon

13. “Part of me suspects that I’m a loser, and the other part of me thinks I’m God Almighty.”
— John Lennon

14. “It’s weird not to be weird.”
— John Lennon

15. “Everything is clearer when you’re in love.”
— John Lennon

16. “When you do something noble and beautiful and nobody noticed, do not be sad. For the sun every morning is a beautiful spectacle and yet most of the audience still sleeps.”
— John Lennon

17. “Creativity is a gift. It doesn’t come through if the air is cluttered.”
— John Lennon

18. “Love is the greatest refreshment in life.”
— John Lennon

19. “Love is like a flower – you’ve got to let it grow.”
— John Lennon

20. “Time wounds all heels.”
— John Lennon

21. “Don’t hate what you don’t understand!”
— John Lennon

22. “Imagine all the people living life in peace…”
— John Lennon

23. “All you need is love.”
— John Lennon

24. “Living is easy with eyes closed.”
— John Lennon

25. “I get by with a little help from my friends.”
— John Lennon

26. “Nothing is real.”
— John Lennon

27. “You don’t need anybody to tell you who you are or what you are. You are what you are!”
— John Lennon

28. “Life is very short, and there’s no time for fussing and fighting my friends.”
— John Lennon

29. “It matters not who you love, where you love, why you love, when you love or how you love, it matters only that you love.”
— John Lennon

30. “We live in a world where we have to hide to make love, while violence is practiced in broad daylight.”
— John Lennon

31. “I believe in everything until it’s disproved. So I believe in fairies, myths, and dragons. It all exists, even if it’s in your mind. Who’s to say that dreams and nightmares aren’t as real as the here and now?”
— John Lennon

32. “Music is everybody’s business. It’s only the publishers who think people own it.”
— John Lennon

33. “I still believe in peace, love, and understanding.”
— John Lennon

34. “God is a concept by which we measure our pain.”
— John Lennon

35. “The more I see, the less I know for sure.”
— John Lennon

36. “There’s nowhere you can be that isn’t where you’re meant to be…”
— John Lennon

37. “Nobody loves you when you’re down and out.”
— John Lennon

38. “How can I go forward when I don’t know which way I’m facing?”
— John Lennon

39. “Everybody seems to think I’m lazy I don’t mind, I think they’re crazy. Running everywhere at such a speed Till they find there’s no need.”
— John Lennon

40. “Tame birds sing of freedom. Wild birds fly.”
— John Lennon

41. “Our society is run by insane people for insane objectives.”
— John Lennon

42. “I believe in God, but not as one thing, not as an old man in the sky. I believe that what people call God is something in all of us. I believe that what Jesus and Mohammed and Buddha and all the rest said was right. It’s just that the translations have gone wrong.”
— John Lennon

43. “There are places I’ll remember All my life though some have changed Some forever not for better Some have gone and some remain All these places have their moments With lovers and friends I still can recall Some are dead and some are living In my life I’ve loved them all.”
— John Lennon

44. “Love is a promise, love is a souvenir, once given never forgotten, never let it disappear.”
— John Lennon

45. “Imagine there’s no heaven, it’s easy if you try. No hell below us, above us only sky. Imagine all the people living for today…”
— John Lennon

46. “One thing you can’t hide – is when you’re crippled inside.”
— John Lennon

47. “Make love, not war.”
— John Lennon

48. “I’m not going to change the way I look or the way I feel to conform to anything. I’ve always been a freak. So I’ve been a freak all my life and I have to live with that, you know. I’m one of those people.”
— John Lennon

49. “Love is like a precious plant. You can’t just accept it and leave it in the cupboard or just think it’s going to get on by itself. You’ve got to keep on watering it. You’ve got to really look after it and nurture it.”
— John Lennon

50. “When I cannot sing my heart, I can only speak my mind.”
— John Lennon

51. “Remember to let her into your heart.”
— John Lennon

52. “The people have the power. All we have to do is awaken the power in the people.”
— John Lennon

53. “Living is easy with eyes closed Misunderstanding all you see It’s getting hard to be someone but it all works out It doesn’t matter much to me.”
— John Lennon

54. “Art is only a way of expressing pain.”
— John Lennon

55. “When you cross the street, take my hand.”
— John Lennon

56. “Tell the truth and make it rhyme.”
— John Lennon

57. “Money can’t buy me love.”
— John Lennon

58. “If everyone demanded peace instead of another television set, then there’d be peace.”
— John Lennon

59. “My role in society, or any artist’s or poet’s role, is to try and express what we all feel. Not to tell people how to feel. Not as a preacher, not as a leader, but as a reflection of us all.”
— John Lennon

60. “If someone thinks that peace and love are just a cliche that must have been left behind in the 60s, that’s a problem. Peace and love are eternal.”
— John Lennon

61. “I’m not afraid of death because I don’t believe in it. It’s just getting out of one car, and into another.”
— John Lennon

62. “I don’t believe in Beatles, I just believe in me.”
— John Lennon

63. “I was feeling insecure you might not love me anymore.”
— John Lennon

64. “Please don’t spoil my day; I’m miles away and, after all, I’m only sleeping.”
— John Lennon

65. “All we are saying is give peace a chance.”
— John Lennon

66. “I am a violent man who has learned not to be violent and regrets his violence.”
— John Lennon

67. “Peace in your mind, peace on earth, peace at work, peace at home, peace in the world.”
— John Lennon

68. “You can only breathe out if you breathe in.”
— John Lennon

69. “Instant Karma is going to get you.”
— John Lennon

70. “Limitless undying love which shines around me like a million suns it calls me on and on across the universe.”
— John Lennon

71. “Whatever gets you through the night.”
— John Lennon

72. “Women should be obscene and not heard.”
— John Lennon

73. “When I was about twelve I used to think I must be a genius, but nobody’s noticed. If there is such a thing as a genius, I am one, and if there isn’t I don’t care.”
— John Lennon

74. “A Conspiracy of silence speaks louder than words.”
— John Lennon

75. “I don’t expect you to understand after you’ve caused so much pain, but then again-you’re not to blame; you’re just human-a victim of the insane.”
— John Lennon

76. “Violence begets violence, you know. And you can’t kill off all the violent people or all the murderers. We’d have to kill off the government.”
— John Lennon

77. “A working class hero is something to be.”
— John Lennon

78. “Before Elvis there was nothing.”
— John Lennon

79. “There are only a few notes. Just variations on a theme.”
— John Lennon

80. “You either get tired fighting for peace, or you die.”
— John Lennon

81. “Nothing affected me until I heard Elvis. Without Elvis, there would be no Beatles.”
— John Lennon

82. “The thing the sixties did was to show us the possibilities and the responsibility that we all had. It wasn’t the answer. It just gave us a glimpse of the possibility.”
— John Lennon

83. “I believe that as soon as people want peace in the world they can have it. The trouble is they are not aware they can get it.”
— John Lennon

84. “We’re more popular than Jesus Christ now.”
— John Lennon

85. “I’ve always considered my work one piece and I consider that my work won’t be finished until I am dead and buried and I hope that’s a long, long time.”
— John Lennon

86. “I never went to high school reunions. My thing is, out of sight, out of mind. That’s my attitude toward life. So I don’t have any romanticism about any part of my past.”
— John Lennon

87. “The sun is up, the sky is blue It’s beautiful, and so are you.”
— John Lennon

88. “For those of you in the cheap seats I’d like ya to clap your hands to this one; the rest of you can just rattle your jewelry!”
— John Lennon

89. “Yeah we all shine on, like the moon, and the stars, and the sun.”
— John Lennon

90. “I only ever asked two people to work with me as a partner. One was Paul McCartney and the other Yoko Ono. Paul and me were the Beatles.”
— John Lennon

91. “In ‘Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds’ I was visualizing Alice in Wonderland, an image of this female who would come and save me – a girl with kaleidoscope eyes who would be the real love of my life. Lucy turned out to be Yoko.”
— John Lennon

92. “Nothing happened in the sixties except that we all dressed up.”
— John Lennon

93. “Possession isn’t nine-tenths of the law. It’s nine-tenths of the problem.”
— John Lennon

94. “The only reason I went for that goal is that I wanted to say: ‘Now, mummy-daddy, will you love me?’”
— John Lennon

95. “Turn off your mind, relax, and float downstream.”
— John Lennon

96. “I can’t play guitar, but I can sure make it howl.”
— John Lennon

97. “You can manicure a cat but can you caticure a man?”
— John Lennon

98. “When I started, rock and roll itself was the basic revolution to people of my age and situation. We needed something loud and clear to break through all the unfeeling and repression that had been coming down on us kids.”
— John Lennon

99. “What Can I Tell You About Myself which You Have Not Already Found Out from Those Who Do Not Lie?”
— John Lennon

100. “Happiness is inside you, not with another person.”
— John Lennon

101. “It was my Fat Elvis period. I was eating and drinking like a pig. I was depressed and I was crying out for help. It’s real. And I meant it.”
— John Lennon

102. “There is nothing conceptually better than rock ‘n’ roll. No group, be it Beatles, Dylan or Stones, have ever improved on Whole Lot of Shaking for my money. Or maybe I’m like our parents: that’s my period and I dig it and I’ll never leave it.”
— John Lennon

103. “Like Paul Kraston said, all I ask in life is a water bed, a TV, and a typewriter. Well, I’ll just have an ordinary bed, a TV, and a guitar.”
— John Lennon

104. “Don’t believe that jazz about there’s nothing you can do, “turn on and drop out man” – because you’ve got to turn on and drop in, or they’re going to drop all over you.”
— John Lennon

105. “At Shea Stadium, I saw the top of the mountain.”
— John Lennon

106. “We’re crazy about this city. Los Angeles? That’s just a big parking lot where you buy a hamburger for the trip to San Francisco.”
— John Lennon

107. “Love is real, real is love.”
— John Lennon

108. “Life happens while we are making other plans.”
— John Lennon

109. “The first drug I ever took, I was still at art school, with the group – we all took it together – was Benzedrine from the inside of an inhaler.”
— John Lennon

110. “Mostly folk music is people with fruity voices trying to keep alive something old and dead. It’s all a bit boring, like ballet: a minority thing kept going by a minority group.”
— John Lennon

111. “I recently got into Haiku in Japan and I just think it’s fantastic. Obviously, when you get rid of a whole section of illusion in your mind you’re left with great precision.”
— John Lennon

112. “I’m not saying we’re better or greater, or comparing us with Jesus Christ as a person, or God as a thing, or whatever it is. I just said what I said, and it was wrong, or it was taken wrong. And now it’s all this.”
— John Lennon

113. “Happiness is a good vibe for peace.”
— John Lennon

114. “Come together, right now.”
— John Lennon

115. “There are two basic motivating forces: fear and love. When we are afraid, we pull back from life. When we are in love, we open to all that life has to offer with passion, excitement, and acceptance.”
— John Lennon

116. “Nobody controls me. I’m uncontrollable. The only one who can control me is me, and even that’s barely possible.”
— John Lennon

117. “The establishment irritates you – pull your beard, flick your face – to make you fight because once they’ve got you violent they know how to handle you. The only thing they don’t know how to handle is non-violence and humor.”
— John Lennon

118. “Imagine.”
— John Lennon

119. “It seems that all revolutions end up with a personality cult – even the Chinese seem to need a father figure.”
— John Lennon

120. “And So This Is Christmas; And What Have We Done? Another Year Over; A New One Just Begun; And So Happy Christmas; I Hope You Have Fun; The Near And The Dear Ones; The Old And The Young.”
— John Lennon

121. “All I want is the truth, just give me some truth.”
— John Lennon

122. “If you want peace, you won’t get it with violence.”
— John Lennon

123. “Elvis died the day he went into the army.”
— John Lennon

124. “Music is everybody’s possession. It’s only publishers who think that people own it. If you were going to give Rock ‘n’ Roll another name you might as well call it Chuck Berry. We’re more popular than Jesus now; I don’t know which will go first – Rock and Roll or Christianity.”
— John Lennon

125. “What we’ve got to do is keep hope alive. Because without it we’ll sink.”
— John Lennon

126. “One day at a time is all we do. One day at a time is good for you.”
— John Lennon

127. “Life is what happens to you while you’re planning on doing something else.”
— John Lennon

128. “When you’re drowning, you don’t say ‘I would be incredibly pleased if someone would have the foresight to notice me drowning and come and help me,’ you just scream.”
— John Lennon

129. “The dream is over. I gotta get down to reality. The good old days is garbage.”
— John Lennon

130. “You say you want a revolution? Well, you know. We all want to change the world.”
— John Lennon

131. “Love is the Answer. What was the Question?”
— John Lennon

132. “When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down happy.”
— John Lennon

133. “Imagine no possessions, I wonder if you can, No need for greed or hunger, A brotherhood of man. Imagine all the people Sharing all the world.”
— John Lennon

134. “Happiness is a warm gun.”
— John Lennon

135. “We need to learn to love ourselves first, in all our glory and our imperfections. If we cannot love ourselves, we cannot fully open to our ability to love others or our potential to create.”
— John Lennon

136. “A day spent wasting time, that you enjoyed, is not time wasted…”
— John Lennon

137. “I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together.”
— John Lennon

138. “I cannot be what I am not.”
— John Lennon

139. “Work is life, you know, and without it, there’s nothing but fear and insecurity.”
— John Lennon

140. “Don’t need a gun to blow your mind.”
— John Lennon

141. “Nobody Told Me There’d Be Days Like These.”
— John Lennon

142. “I want you to make love, not war, I know you’ve heard it before.”
— John Lennon

143. “The best things in life are free, but you can keep them for the birds and bees; I want money.”
— John Lennon

144. “We’re trying to sell peace, like a product, you know, and sell it like people sell soap or soft drinks. And it’s the only way to get people aware that peace is possible, and it isn’t just inevitable to have violence. Not just war – all forms of violence.”
— John Lennon

145. “You can go to church and sing a hymn, Judge me by the color of my skin, You can live a lie until you die, One thing you can’t hide is when you’re crippled inside.”
— John Lennon

146. “Imagine no possessions; I wonder if you can.”
— John Lennon

147. “The magic of the music seems to light the way.”
— John Lennon

148. “The trouble with government as it is, is that it doesn’t represent the people. It controls them.”
— John Lennon

149. “You won’t get anything unless you have the vision to imagine it.”
— John Lennon

150. “I am the eggman They are the eggmen! I am the walrus!”
— John Lennon

151. “Music touching my soul, the spirit dance was unfolding.”
— John Lennon

152. “No longer riding on the merry-go-round, I just had to let it go.”
— John Lennon

153. “Nothing you can know that isn’t known Nothing you can see that isn’t shown Nowhere you can be that isn’t where you’re meant to be It’s easy.”
— John Lennon

154. “Ringo isn’t the best drummer in the world. He isn’t even the best drummer in the Beatles.”
— John Lennon

155. “Mother, you had me, but I never had you.”
— John Lennon

156. “Pools of sorrow. Waves of joy.”
— John Lennon

157. “I am going into an unknown future, but I’m still all here, and still while there’s life, there’s hope.”
— John Lennon

158. “I’m cynical about society, politics, newspapers, government. But I’m not cynical about life, love, goodness, death. That’s why I really don’t want to be labeled a cynic.”
— John Lennon

159. “They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, I told them they didn’t understand life.”
— John Lennon

160. “I would like to say thank you on behalf of the group and ourselves and I hope we’ve passed the audition.”
— John Lennon

161. “Life is what happens when we are busy doing other things. Peace is not something you wish for; it’s something you make, something you do, something you are and something you give away.”
— John Lennon

162. “We all have Hitler in us, but we also have love and peace. So why not give peace a chance for once?”
— John Lennon

163. “Evolution and all hopes for a better world rest in the fearlessness and open-hearted vision of people who embrace life.”
— John Lennon

164. “There’s room at the top they are telling you still, but first you must learn how to smile as you kill.”
— John Lennon

165. “You’re born in pain and pain is what we’re in most of the time. And I think that the bigger the pain, the more gods we need.”
— John Lennon

166. “Am I crazy or am I a genius? I don’t think I’m either.”
— John Lennon

167. “Half of what I say is meaningless, but I say it just to reach you.”
— John Lennon

168. “When they’ve tortured and scared you for 20-odd years, then they expect you to pick a career.”
— John Lennon

169. “Instant Karma’s gonna get you, gonna knock you right on the head.”
— John Lennon

170. “Our society is run by insane people for insane objectives. I think we’re being run by maniacs for maniacal ends and I think I’m liable to be put away as insane for expressing that. That’s what’s insane about it.”
— John Lennon

171. “Don’t underestimate the importance of happiness. As long as you’re happy, who cares what you do?”
— John Lennon

172. “It’s amazing how low you go to get high.”
— John Lennon

173. “It’s better to fade away like an old soldier than to burn out.”
— John Lennon

174. “Trying to please everybody is impossible – if you did that, you’d end up in the middle with nobody liking you. You’ve just got to make the decision about what you think is your best, and do it.”
— John Lennon

175. “When I hold you in my arms and I feel my finger on your trigger I know no one can do me no harm because happiness is a warm gun.”
— John Lennon

176. “If there hadn’t been an Elvis, there wouldn’t have been the Beatles.”
— John Lennon

177. “Control yourself. You’ll spurt.”
— John Lennon

178. “They hit you at school, they hate you if you’re clever, and they despise a fool.”
— John Lennon

179. “I don’t stand back and judge – I do.”
— John Lennon

180. “If I’d lived in Roman times, I’d have lived in Rome. Where else? Today America is the Roman Empire and New York is Rome itself.”
— John Lennon

181. “We are all Christ and Hitler. Yoko and I want Christ to win.”
— John Lennon

182. “Always remember this: ‘A kiss will never miss, and after many kisses, a miss becomes a misses.’”
— John Lennon

183. “I’ll probably be popped off by some loony.”
— John Lennon

184. “Strawberry Fields is anywhere you want to go.”
— John Lennon

185. “I’ll give you everything I’ve got for a little peace of mind.”
— John Lennon

186. “Surrealism to me is reality. Psychedelic vision is a reality to me and always was.”
— John Lennon

187. “One thing I can tell you is you have to be free. Come together, right now, over me.”
— John Lennon

188. “People asking questions, lost in confusion, well I tell them there’s no problem, only solutions.”
— John Lennon

189. “I’ll be a good boy, please make me well. I promise you anything, get me out of this hell. Cold turkey has got me on the run.”
— John Lennon

190. “No short-haired, yellow-bellied, son of tricky dicky Is gonna mother Hubbard soft soap me With just a pocketful of soap.”
— John Lennon

191. “I don’t know how much money I’ve got. I did ask the accountant how much it came to. I wrote it down on a bit of paper. But I’ve lost the bit of paper.”
— John Lennon

192. “We’re all God. I’m not a god or the God, but we’re all God and we’re all potentially divine and potentially evil.”
— John Lennon

193. “We’re mostly macrobiotic, but sometimes I take the family out for a pizza.”
— John Lennon

194. “Millions of mind guerrillas, raising the spirit of peace and love, not war.”
— John Lennon

195. “Why in the world are we here? Surely not to live in pain and fear. Why on earth are you there, when you’re everywhere-come and get your share.”
— John Lennon

196. “Happiness Is A Warm Gun not about heroin. A gun magazine was sitting there with a smoking gun on the cover and an article that I never read inside called ‘Happiness Is a Warm Gun.’ I took it right from there. I took it as the terrible idea of just having shot some animal.”
— John Lennon

197. “I put things down on sheets of paper and stuff them in my pockets. When I have enough, I have a book.”
— John Lennon

198. “Love, Love, Love. All you need is love. Love is all you need.”
— John Lennon

199. “We were all on this ship in the sixties, our generation, a ship going to discover the New World. And the Beatles were in the crow’s nest of that ship.”
— John Lennon

200. “Look, I wasn’t saying the Beatles are better than God or Jesus. I said ‘Beatles’ because it’s easy for me to talk about the Beatles. I could have said TV or the cinema, motor cars or anything popular and I would have gotten away with it.”
— John Lennon

John C. Maxwell, born on February 20, 1947, is an influential American author, speaker, and leadership expert. Renowned for his teachings on leadership development, Maxwell has authored numerous bestselling books, including “The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership.” Ordained as a pastor, he served in various roles before founding EQUIP, an organization focused on training leaders worldwide. As a speaker, Maxwell addresses audiences globally, emphasizing the principles of effective leadership, personal growth, and success. He is also a leadership coach and consultant, impacting individuals and organizations with his insights. Maxwell’s philosophy centers on empowering others to reach their leadership potential and make a positive impact on their communities. With a career spanning decades, John C. Maxwell continues to be a leading voice in the field of leadership and personal development.

John C. Maxwell Quotes

1. “Dreams don’t work unless you do.”
— John C. Maxwell

2. “Leadership is not about titles, positions, or flowcharts. It is about one life influencing another.”
— John C. Maxwell

3. “Motivation gets you going, but discipline keeps you growing.”
— John C. Maxwell

4. “If we’re growing, we’re always going to be out of our comfort zone.”
— John C. Maxwell

5. “Seven Steps to Success 1) Make a commitment to grow daily. 2) Value the process more than events. 3) Don’t wait for inspiration. 4) Be willing to sacrifice pleasure for opportunity. 5) Dream big. 6) Plan your priorities. 7) Give up to go up.”
— John C. Maxwell

6. “Change is inevitable. Growth is optional.”
— John C. Maxwell

7. “You will never change your life until you change something you do daily. The secret of your success is found in your daily routine.”
— John C. Maxwell

8. “If you start today to do the right thing, you are already a success even if it doesn’t show yet.”
— John C. Maxwell

9. “The truth is that teamwork is at the heart of great achievement.”
— John C. Maxwell

10. “Life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it.”
— John C. Maxwell

11. “Success is knowing your purpose in life, growing to reach your maximum potential, and sowing seeds that benefit others.”
— John C. Maxwell

12. “Small disciplines repeated with consistency every day lead to great achievements gained slowly over time.”
— John C. Maxwell

13. “A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.”
— John C. Maxwell

14. “Image is what people think we are; integrity is what we really are.”
— John C. Maxwell

15. “A successful person finds the right place for himself. But a successful leader finds the right place for others. ”
— John C. Maxwell

16. “When the leader lacks confidence, the followers lack commitment.”
— John C. Maxwell

17. “Life is a matter of choices, and every choice you make makes you.”
— John C. Maxwell

18. “Talent is a gift, but character is a choice.”
— John C. Maxwell

19. “To grow yourself, you must know yourself.”
— John C. Maxwell

20. “Fail early, fail often, but always fail forward.”
— John C. Maxwell

21. “Learn to say ‘no’ to the good so you can say ‘yes’ to the best.”
— John C. Maxwell

22. “When was the last time you did something for the first time?”
— John C. Maxwell

23. “The only guarantee for failure is to stop trying.”
— John C. Maxwell

24. “A man must be big enough to admit his mistakes, smart enough to profit from them, and strong enough to correct them.”
— John C. Maxwell

25. “Leaders become great, not because of their power, but because of their ability to empower others.”
— John C. Maxwell

26. “Real leadership is being the person others will gladly and confidently follow.”
— John C. Maxwell

27. “Goals may give focus, but dreams give power.”
— John C. Maxwell

28. “Collaboration is multiplication.”
— John C. Maxwell

29. “Live to learn and you will really learn to live.”
— John C. Maxwell

30. “A leader who produces other leaders multiples their influences.”
— John C. Maxwell

31. “Leaders must be close enough to relate to others, but far enough ahead to motivate them.”
— John C. Maxwell

32. “Everything rises and falls on leadership.”
— John C. Maxwell

33. “We cannot become what we need by remaining what we are.”
— John C. Maxwell

34. “If we are growing, we are always going to be outside our comfort zone.”
— John C. Maxwell

35. “Teamwork makes the dream work, but a vision becomes a nightmare when the leader has a big dream and a bad team.”
— John C. Maxwell

36. “The true measure of leadership is influence – nothing more, nothing less.”
— John C. Maxwell

37. “Your attitude determines your actions, and your actions determine your accomplishment.”
— John C. Maxwell

38. “Teamwork gives you the best opportunity to turn vision into reality.”
— John C. Maxwell

39. “The greatest day in your life and mine is when we take total responsibility for our attitudes. That’s the day we truly grow up.”
— John C. Maxwell

40. “The only one you should compare yourself to is you. Your mission is to become better today than you were yesterday.”
— John C. Maxwell

41. “The whole idea of motivation is a trap. Forget motivation. Just do it. Exercise, lose weight, test your blood sugar, or whatever. Do it without motivation. And then, guess what? After you start doing the thing, that’s when the motivation comes and makes it easy for you to keep on doing it.”
— John C. Maxwell

42. “The greatest mistake we make is living in constant fear that we will make one.”
— John C. Maxwell

43. “Most people want to avoid pain, and discipline is usually painful.”
— John C. Maxwell

44. “Everyone is a leader because everyone influences someone.”
— John C. Maxwell

45. “Impossible is not a fact. It’s an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It’s a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing.”
— John C. Maxwell

46. “A great leader’s courage to fulfill his vision comes from passion, not position.”
— John C. Maxwell

47. “Reflective thinking turns experience into insight.”
— John C. Maxwell

48. “Diligent follow-up and follow-through will set you apart from the crowd and communicate excellence.”
— John C. Maxwell

49. “Pay now, play later; play now, pay later.”
— John C. Maxwell

50. “If you don’t have peace, it isn’t because someone took it from you; you gave it away. You cannot always control what happens to you, but you can control what happens in you.”
— John C. Maxwell

51. “Leadership development is a lifetime journey, not a quick trip.”
— John C. Maxwell

52. “Disappointment is the gap that exists between expectation and reality.”
— John C. Maxwell

53. “Your talk talks and your walk talks, but your walk talks louder than your talk talks.”
— John C. Maxwell

54. “Wanting to win isn’t enough. You have to go through a process to improve. That takes patience, perseverance, and intentionality.”
— John C. Maxwell

55. “The more intentional you are about your leadership growth, the greater your potential for becoming the leader you’re capable of being. Never stop learning.”
— John C. Maxwell

56. “There is no success without failure and losses.”
— John C. Maxwell

57. “Your core values are the deeply held beliefs that authentically describe your soul.”
— John C. Maxwell

58. “While a good leader sustains momentum, a great leader increases it.”
— John C. Maxwell

59. “Delegate – work smarter, not harder; do what you do best and drop the rest; get control of your calendar; do what you love because it will give you energy; work with people you like so your energy isn’t depleted.”
— John C. Maxwell

60. “One of the greatest values of mentors is the ability to see ahead what others cannot see and to help them navigate a course to their destination.”
— John C. Maxwell

61. “Failing forward is the ability to get back up after you’ve been knocked down, learn from your mistake, and move forward in a better direction.”
— John C. Maxwell

62. “Be intentional to add value to every person you meet every day.”
— John C. Maxwell

63. “Leadership is influence.”
— John C. Maxwell

64. “Leadership is taking responsibility while others are making excuses.”
— John C. Maxwell

65. “The secret of your success is determined by your daily agenda.”
— John C. Maxwell

66. “Success is a continuing thing. It is growth and development. It is achieving one thing and using that as a stepping stone to achieve something else.”
— John C. Maxwell

67. “Momentum solves 80% of your problems.”
— John C. Maxwell

68. “Motivation gets you going, but discipline keeps you growing. That’s the Law of Consistency. It doesn’t matter how talented you are. It doesn’t matter how many opportunities you receive. If you want to grow, consistency is key.”
— John C. Maxwell

69. “If you do the things you need to do when you need to do them, then someday you can do the things you want do when you want to do them.”
— John C. Maxwell

70. “If you don’t change the direction you are going, then you’re likely to end up where you’re heading.”
— John C. Maxwell

71. “Encouragement is oxygen for the soul.”
— John C. Maxwell

72. “Most People have a desire to look for the exception instead of the desire to become exceptional. ”
— John C. Maxwell

73. “Time management is an oxymoron. Time is beyond our control, and the clock keeps ticking regardless of how we lead our lives. Priority management is the answer to maximizing the time we have.”
— John C. Maxwell

74. “Mistakes are the stepping stones to success.”
— John C. Maxwell

75. “Confidence is a characteristic of a positive attitude. The greatest achievers and leaders remain confident regardless of circumstances.”
— John C. Maxwell

76. “Once a decision is made, you should stop worrying and start working. It’s not always what we know that makes it a good decision. It is what we do to implement and execute it that makes it a good decision.”
— John C. Maxwell

77. “The boss inspires fear; the leader inspires enthusiasm.”
— John C. Maxwell

78. “I believe that everyone chooses how to approach life. If you’re proactive, you focus on preparing. If you’re reactive, you end up focusing on repairing.”
— John C. Maxwell

79. “To add value to others, one must first value others.”
— John C. Maxwell

80. “Successful people don’t have any fewer problems than unsuccessful people; they just have a different mindset in dealing with them.”
— John C. Maxwell

81. “Failure is an inside job. So is success. If you want to achieve, you have to win the war in your thinking first. You can’t let the failure outside you get inside you.”
— John C. Maxwell

82. “Profile of a winning team – They play to win. They have a winning attitude. They keep improving. They make their teammates more successful.”
— John C. Maxwell

83. “Failed plans should not be interpreted as a failed vision. Visions don’t change, they are only refined. Plans rarely stay the same, and are scrapped or adjusted as needed. Be stubborn about the vision, but flexible with your plan.”
— John C. Maxwell

84. “Losers focus on what they are going through; winners focus on what they are going to.”
— John C. Maxwell

85. “Leadership is developed daily, not in a day.”
— John C. Maxwell

86. “Needless to say, you can love people without leading them, but you cannot lead people without loving them.”
— John C. Maxwell

87. “Do something you hate every day, just for the practice.”
— John C. Maxwell

88. “The longer you wait to do something you should do now, the greater the odds that you will never actually do it.”
— John C. Maxwell

89. “Always take the high road.”
— John C. Maxwell

90. “Your life today is a result of your thinking yesterday. Your life tomorrow will be determined by what you think today.”
— John C. Maxwell

91. “People change when they hurt enough that they have to change, learn enough that they want to change, receive enough that they are able to change.”
— John C. Maxwell

92. “The single biggest way to impact an organization is to focus on leadership development. There is almost no limit to the potential of an organization that recruits good people, raises them up as leaders and continually develops them.”
— John C. Maxwell

93. “Where there is no hope in the future, there is no power in the present.”
— John C. Maxwell

94. “Life is now in session. Are you present?”
— John C. Maxwell

95. “We were created for meaningful work, and one of life’s greatest pleasures is the satisfaction of a job well done.”
— John C. Maxwell

96. “A leader is a reader.”
— John C. Maxwell

97. “The bottom line in leadership isn’t how far we advance ourselves but how far we advance others.”
— John C. Maxwell

98. “People who use time wisely spend it on activities that advance their overall purpose in life.”
— John C. Maxwell

99. “Successful and unsuccessful people do not vary greatly in their abilities. They vary in their desires to reach their potential.”
— John C. Maxwell

100. “Becoming a good listener, you are able to connect with others on more levels and develop stronger, deeper relationships.”
— John C. Maxwell

101. “If your habits don’t line up with your dream, then you need to either change your habits or change your dream.”
— John C. Maxwell

102. “Don’t worry about yesterday it ended last night at midnight.”
— John C. Maxwell

103. “True success is obeying God.”
— John C. Maxwell

104. “Efficiency is the foundation for survival. Effectiveness is the foundation for success.”
— John C. Maxwell

105. “Think, Act, Talk, and Conduct Yourself Like the Person You Want to Become.”
— John C. Maxwell

106. “The whole idea of motivation is a trap. Forget motivation. Just do it.”
— John C. Maxwell

107. “Great leaders understand that the right attitude will set the right atmosphere, which enables the right response from others.”
— John C. Maxwell

108. “The value you receive from reflective thinking will depend on the kinds of questions you ask yourself.”
— John C. Maxwell

109. “When you make a commitment, you create hope. When you keep a commitment you create trust!”
— John C. Maxwell

110. “If you don’t try to create the future you want, you must endure the future you get.”
— John C. Maxwell

111. “The road to success is long and uphill all the way.”
— John C. Maxwell

112. “Why worry about things you can’t control when you can keep yourself busy controlling the things that depend on you?”
— John C. Maxwell

113. “Want to impress others? Talk about your successes. Want to impact others? Talk about your failures.”
— John C. Maxwell

114. “The ability to understand people is one of the greatest assets anyone can ever have.”
— John C. Maxwell

115. “Nothing of significance was ever achieved by an individual acting alone. Look below the surface and you will find that all seemingly solo acts are really team efforts.”
— John C. Maxwell

116. “Leaders touch a heart before they ask for a hand.”
— John C. Maxwell

117. “Character makes trust possible, and trust is the foundation of leadership.”
— John C. Maxwell

118. “The greatest enemy of good thinking is busyness.”
— John C. Maxwell

119. “A good leader is a person who takes a little more than his share of the blame and a little less than his share of the credit.”
— John C. Maxwell

120. “One is too small a number to achieve greatness. No accomplishment of real value has ever been achieved by a human being working alone.”
— John C. Maxwell

121. “Successful people are willing to do things unsuccessful people will not do.”
— John C. Maxwell

122. “Leadership is the power of one harnessing the power of many.”
— John C. Maxwell

123. “Good thinkers are always in demand. A person who knows how may always have a job, but the person who knows why will always be his boss.”
— John C. Maxwell

124. “When you nurture people and add value to them without expecting anything in return, they feel significant.”
— John C. Maxwell

125. “Successful people reject rejection.”
— John C. Maxwell

126. “There are two paths people can take. They can either play now and pay later, or pay now and play later. Regardless of the choice, one thing is certain. Life will demand a payment.”
— John C. Maxwell

127. “Be a river – not a reservoir.”
— John C. Maxwell

128. “Make personal growth a daily priority.”
— John C. Maxwell

129. “Always turn to God in the midst of your struggle and view people who offended you as an instrument of divine sovereignty.”
— John C. Maxwell

130. “Earn the right to be heard by listening to others. Seek to understand a situation before making judgments about it.”
— John C. Maxwell

131. “If you can learn to understand people how they think, what they feel, what inspires them, how they’re likely to act and react in a given situation- then you can motivate and influence them in a positive way.”
— John C. Maxwell

132. “Leading well is not about enriching yourself – it’s about empowering others.”
— John C. Maxwell

133. “You can change your life if you really want to. You can improve it, make it better. And it all starts with changing the way you think.”
— John C. Maxwell

134. “The difference between where we are and where we want to be is created by the changes we are willing to make in our lives. When you want something you’ve never had, you must do something you’ve never done to get it.”
— John C. Maxwell

135. “I want to make a difference with people who want to make a difference, doing something that makes a difference.”
— John C. Maxwell

136. “It takes a team to do anything of lasting value.”
— John C. Maxwell

137. “Problems almost always create opportunities – to learn, grow and improve.”
— John C. Maxwell

138. “Actions are remembered long after words are forgotten.”
— John C. Maxwell

139. “Vision without passion is a picture without possibilities.”
— John C. Maxwell

140. “The more you do, the more you fail. The more you fail, the more you learn. The more you learn, the better you get.”
— John C. Maxwell

141. “If you focus on goals, you may hit goals – but that doesn’t guarantee growth. If you focus on growth, you will grow and always hit goals.”
— John C. Maxwell

142. “You cannot enjoy others until you enjoy yourself because you cannot give to others what you do not have.”
— John C. Maxwell

143. “People buy into the leader before they buy into the vision.”
— John C. Maxwell

144. “Leadership is influence. It is the ability to obtain followers. When the leader lacks confidence, the followers have no commitment. A leader is great not because of his power, but because of his ability to empower others.”
— John C. Maxwell

145. “Coming together is a beginning, and staying together is progress, but only when teams sweat together do they find success.”
— John C. Maxwell

146. “You cannot overestimate the unimportance of practically everything.”
— John C. Maxwell

147. “Making a difference in your work is not about productivity; it’s about people. When you focus on others and connect with them, you can work together to accomplish great things.”
— John C. Maxwell

148. “If you’re a leader, do everything you can to grow yourself and create the right environment for others to grow.”
— John C. Maxwell

149. “Ordinary people with commitment can make an extraordinary impact on their world.”
— John C. Maxwell

150. “Growth today is an investment for tomorrow.”
— John C. Maxwell

Joyce Meyer, born on June 4, 1943, is an American author, speaker, and television personality known for her Christian teachings. Raised in a troubled home, Meyer experienced personal hardships before dedicating her life to Christianity. In 1985, she founded Joyce Meyer Ministries to share her faith through conferences, books, and a television show, “Enjoying Everyday Life.” Her teachings emphasize practical applications of biblical principles to overcome challenges. Meyer’s straightforward and relatable style has gained her a global following. She is a bestselling author with numerous books on self-help and Christian living. Beyond her ministry, Meyer is involved in philanthropy, supporting various causes through her organization. With a vast outreach, Joyce Meyer has become a prominent figure in the evangelical Christian community.

Joyce Meyer Quotes

1. “You cannot have a positive life and a negative mind.”
— Joyce Meyer

2. “Patience is not the ability to wait but the ability to keep a good attitude while waiting.”
— Joyce Meyer

3. “You can suffer the pain of change or suffer remaining the way you are.”
— Joyce Meyer

4. “Keep walking the walk, one step at a time.”
— Joyce Meyer

5. “Having a rough day? Place your hand over your heart. Feel that? It’s called purpose. You’re alive for a reason. Don’t give up.”
— Joyce Meyer

6. “Get up every day, love God, and do your best. He will do the rest!”
— Joyce Meyer

7. “A positive attitude gives you power over your circumstances instead of your circumstances having power over you.”
— Joyce Meyer

8. “When you are tempted to give up, your breakthrough is probably just around the corner.”
— Joyce Meyer

9. “Courage is fear that has said its prayers and decided to go forward anyway.”
— Joyce Meyer

10. “If you don’t love yourself, it’s impossible for you to love others. You can’t give away what you don’t have.”
— Joyce Meyer

11. “In the midst of your battles, never forget that God loves you and He has a plan for you.”
— Joyce Meyer

12. “I may not be where I want to be, but thank God I am not where I used to be.”
— Joyce Meyer

13. “Excellence is going the extra mile.”
— Joyce Meyer

14. “Commit to stop making excuses. When we make excuses, we lie to ourselves and continue bad habits.”
— Joyce Meyer

15. “Just because you feel fear doesn’t mean you can’t do it. Do it afraid.”
— Joyce Meyer

16. “Don’t be afraid of change, because it is leading you to a new beginning.”
— Joyce Meyer

17. “Life is not fair; God is.”
— Joyce Meyer

18. “Strive for excellence, not perfection, because we don’t live in a perfect world.”
— Joyce Meyer

19. “Character is doing what you don’t want to do but know you should do.”
— Joyce Meyer

20. “The more you trust Jesus and keep your eyes focused on Him, the more life you’ll have. Trusting God brings life. Believing brings rest. So stop trying to figure everything out, and let God be God in your life.”
— Joyce Meyer

21. “If you will stop feeding your feelings, then they will stop controlling you.”
— Joyce Meyer

22. “Teachers can change lives with just the right mix of chalk and challenges.”
— Joyce Meyer

23. “We must remember we are stewards of what God has provided for us, not owners.”
— Joyce Meyer

24. “If we do our best, God will do the rest.”
— Joyce Meyer

25. “Compliment people. Magnify their strengths, not their weaknesses.”
— Joyce Meyer

26. “If God changes your heart, be willing to change your plans.”
— Joyce Meyer

27. “Embrace your life, count your blessings, and don’t complain about what you don’t have.”
— Joyce Meyer

28. “Being negative only makes a difficult journey more difficult. You may be given a cactus, but you don’t have to sit on it.”
— Joyce Meyer

29. “Today is a brand new beginning for me!”
— Joyce Meyer

30. “Watch out for the joy-stealers: gossip, criticism, complaining, faultfinding, and a negative, judgmental attitude.”
— Joyce Meyer

31. “I believe that the greatest gift you can give your family and the world is a healthy you.”
— Joyce Meyer

32. “Worry is a down payment on a problem you may never have.”
— Joyce Meyer

33. “Harboring unforgiveness is like drinking poison and hoping your enemy will die.”
— Joyce Meyer

34. “You’re not free unless you come to the place where you have nothing to prove.”
— Joyce Meyer

35. “God has equipped you to handle difficult things. In fact, He has already planted the seeds of discipline and self-control inside you. You just have to water those seeds with His Word to make them grow!”
— Joyce Meyer

36. “God hears and He sees, and you are not alone in your struggles. Remain firm and stable, for God has your deliverance planned.”
— Joyce Meyer

37. “God’s love for me is perfect because it’s based on Him, not on me. So even when I failed He kept loving me.”
— Joyce Meyer

38. “We don’t need self-confidence we need God-confidence.”
— Joyce Meyer

39. “Spending time with God is the key to our strength and success in all areas of life. Be sure that you never try to work God into your schedule, but always work your schedule around Him.”
— Joyce Meyer

40. “Every day is a gift from God. Learn to focus on the Giver and enjoy the gift!”
— Joyce Meyer

41. “Keep your mind going in the right direction, and your life will catch up with it.”
— Joyce Meyer

42. “Just because you go to church doesn’t mean you’re a Christian. I can go sit in the garage all day and it doesn’t make me a car.”
— Joyce Meyer

43. “God is working on your problem. Stay calm. Stay sweet. Stay out of fear and keep on keeping on.”
— Joyce Meyer

44. “Christianity is a lifestyle. And being a Christian is more than a label.”
— Joyce Meyer

45. “I want to focus on God’s grace and give thanks for all the good things in my life. I don’t want to focus on what I don’t have.”
— Joyce Meyer

46. “If you will make time with God your first priority, everything else in your life will fall into place.”
— Joyce Meyer

47. “New level, New devil.”
— Joyce Meyer

48. “We will all fail in life, but nobody has to be a failure. Failing at a thing doesn’t make you a failure. You are only a failure when you quit trying.”
— Joyce Meyer

49. “Positive minds produce positive lives. Negative minds produce negative lives. Positive thoughts are always full of faith and hope. Negative thoughts are always full of fear and doubt.”
— Joyce Meyer

50. “When you take time with God and listen to His voice, He renews your strength and enables you to handle life.”
— Joyce Meyer

51. “Obedience to God is the pathway to the life you really want to live.”
— Joyce Meyer

52. “You have the power to make the world a better place by being kind to someone today.”
— Joyce Meyer

53. “Don’t depend on other people as the source of your happiness or for approval.”
— Joyce Meyer

54. “Faith is having a positive attitude about what you can do and not worrying at all about what you can’t do.”
— Joyce Meyer

55. “You don’t need to know what tomorrow holds; all you need to know is the One who holds tomorrow.”
— Joyce Meyer

56. “Worry and reasoning are two of Satan’s most successful tools. He’ll get us started with one negative thought and then sit back and watch us finish ourselves off.”
— Joyce Meyer

57. “You can be pitiful, or you can be powerful, but you can’t be both.”
— Joyce Meyer

58. “We worship God with our entire life – with every decision we make and everything we do.”
— Joyce Meyer

59. “Complain and remain. Praise and be raised.”
— Joyce Meyer

60. “Contentment with life is not a feeling, but it is a decision we must make.”
— Joyce Meyer

61. “An affirmation to say every day: The healing power of God is working in me right now. Every day I get better and better in every way.”
— Joyce Meyer

62. “Don’t mourn over your bad decisions. Just start overcoming them with good ones.”
— Joyce Meyer

63. “Learn how to enjoy where you are on the way to where you’re going.”
— Joyce Meyer

64. “Don’t give up on the people you love. Your patient love and faithfulness may be exactly what they need to make a complete turnaround.”
— Joyce Meyer

65. “God wants to use you to make other people happy! And the happier you make others, the happier you will be because you reap what you sow.”
— Joyce Meyer

66. “Grace is not the freedom to sin; it is the power to live a holy life.”
— Joyce Meyer

67. “You have a great God who loves you and cares about you. Be full of hope that something good can happen to you. God is a master at new beginnings. He loves fresh beginnings, He makes all things new.”
— Joyce Meyer

68. “You never really know yourself until you see yourself under pressure.”
— Joyce Meyer

69. “Any day that we don’t give up puts us one day closer to success!”
— Joyce Meyer

70. “You are not free until you have no need to impress anybody.”
— Joyce Meyer

71. “Stop labeling people just because they’re not like you.”
— Joyce Meyer

72. “You will never enjoy life if you do not enjoy yourself.”
— Joyce Meyer

73. “God doesn’t tell you to do hard things so He can stand back and laugh and watch you struggle. He tells you to do things the things that He knows are gonna work out to your good in the end.”
— Joyce Meyer

74. “Victory is not the absence of problems, it is the presence of power.”
— Joyce Meyer

75. “My purpose in life is to do right and to glorify God.”
— Joyce Meyer

76. “God forgives us and remembers our sin no more; therefore, stop remembering what God has forgotten.”
— Joyce Meyer

77. “It is impossible to be both selfish and happy.”
— Joyce Meyer

78. “Your worst day with God is still better than your best day without Him.”
— Joyce Meyer

79. “Don’t waste your life waiting until everything is perfect before you start enjoying it.”
— Joyce Meyer

80. “Whatever your situation, God wants to heal you, strengthen you, and lead you to a place where you can enjoy life again.”
— Joyce Meyer

81. “Love can melt the hardest heart, heal the wounds of the broken heart, and quiet the fears of the anxious heart.”
— Joyce Meyer

82. “Worry is like rocking in a rocking chair all day because it keeps you busy but gets you nowhere.”
— Joyce Meyer

83. “God knows the mess we’re in when He calls us. His light shines greater through “cracked pots” than it does through those who have it all together.”
— Joyce Meyer

84. “Breaking old habits and forming new ones always takes time, but it is worth it in the end.”
— Joyce Meyer

85. “Everyone knows how to smile. It’s one of the greatest gifts God has given us. A smile makes people feel good, and people look so beautiful when they smile.”
— Joyce Meyer

86. “Pray about everything and worry about nothing. You will enjoy life much more.”
— Joyce Meyer

87. “Remember God is not surprised by your inabilities, your imperfections, or your faults. He has always known everything about you that you are just now finding out, and he chose you on purpose for himself.”
— Joyce Meyer

88. “If you can’t learn to enjoy your life when you have problems, you may never enjoy it because we’ll always have problems.”
— Joyce Meyer

89. “Courage means to keep making forward progress while you still feel afraid!”
— Joyce Meyer

90. “The truth is, if we don’t learn to submit to authority, we won’t ever learn to submit to God.”
— Joyce Meyer

91. “Don’t let someone who has a bad attitude give it to you.”
— Joyce Meyer

92. “The best way to get along with people is not to expect them to be like you.”
— Joyce Meyer

93. “Do what’s right, first. Don’t sit around and wait for someone else to do the right thing first.”
— Joyce Meyer

94. “Getting stress out of your life takes more than prayer alone. You must take action to make changes and stop doing whatever is causing the stress. You can learn to calm down in the way you handle things.”
— Joyce Meyer

95. “Grace equals ability. God gives us grace to match our call. When we do our own thing, we do it on our own. When we follow His leading, He always supplies the grace and the energy to do what He’s calling us to do.”
— Joyce Meyer

96. “Better to have a big goal and reach half of it than to have no goal and reach all of it.”
— Joyce Meyer

97. “You need to be moving if you want God to show you which way to go.”
— Joyce Meyer

98. “God gives us hopes and dreams for certain things to happen in our lives, but He doesn’t always allow us to see the exact timing of His plan.”
— Joyce Meyer

99. “Grace is God doing for us what we could never do and what we will never deserve.”
— Joyce Meyer

100. “Wisdom is doing now what you are going to be happy with later on.”
— Joyce Meyer

101. “The Bible is no ordinary book. The words are like medicine to your soul, and it has the power to change your life!”
— Joyce Meyer

102. “Anything that God wants you to have, there’s no devil in hell and no person on earth that can keep you from having it if you just won’t quit and give up.”
— Joyce Meyer

103. “A bad attitude is like a flat tire. If you don’t change it, you won’t go anywhere.”
— Joyce Meyer

104. “God is the Source of real love, joy, peace, wisdom, and everything else we all need to be the people He has created us to be.”
— Joyce Meyer

105. “Five minutes of communication can save a year’s worth of turmoil and misunderstanding.”
— Joyce Meyer

106. “Perhaps we could enjoy ordinary, everyday life more if we learned to celebrate the ordinary.”
— Joyce Meyer

107. “Prayer is simply talking to God like a friend and should be the easiest thing we do each day.”
— Joyce Meyer

108. “Attitude is your thought life turned inside out.”
— Joyce Meyer

109. “You never know how close you are to a breakthrough. It may be right around the corner. Don’t quit!”
— Joyce Meyer

110. “Don’t try to change people. It won’t work, and they will end up resenting you. Only God can change people!”
— Joyce Meyer

111. “Grace is the power of the Holy Spirit coming to us free of charge to enable you to do with ease what you could never do on your own with any amount of struggle and effort.”
— Joyce Meyer

112. “Until we accept and approve of ourselves, no amount of approval from others will keep us permanently secure.”
— Joyce Meyer

113. “Potential is a priceless treasure, like gold. All of us have gold hidden within, but we have to dig to get it out.”
— Joyce Meyer

114. “I am not promising that God will give you everything you want. There are times when we want things that God knows would not be good for us.”
— Joyce Meyer

115. “The words you say could hurt or help you. “Change Your Words, Change Your Life””
— Joyce Meyer

116. “Where the mind goes, the man follows.”
— Joyce Meyer

117. “Complaining is dangerous business. It can damage or even destroy your relationship with God, your relationships with other people, and even with your relationship with yourself.”
— Joyce Meyer

118. “Serving God doesn’t mean we’ll no longer have difficulties. We’re still on the battlefield, but we don’t have to fight alone.”
— Joyce Meyer

119. “Love and Self-control are the bookends of the fruit of the Spirit. Remove one of them and the rest fall over.”
— Joyce Meyer

120. “Stop comparing yourself to other people; you are an original. We are all different and it’s okay.”
— Joyce Meyer

121. “If you will do what you CAN do, God will do what you CANNOT do.”
— Joyce Meyer

122. “Put your expectations on God, not on people.”
— Joyce Meyer

123. “If you can’t control what you think, you will not be able to control what you do.”
— Joyce Meyer

124. “You will never see the end, if you give up in the middle.”
— Joyce Meyer

125. “As you read or listen to God’s Word and spend time talking to Him in prayer, your spirit will eventually become stronger than your flesh.”
— Joyce Meyer

126. “The Bible says that Christians are the salt of the earth and the light of the world. On the job, in the grocery store, even among unsaved friends and family members, God’s people are there to bring seasoning to an unsavory situation.”
— Joyce Meyer

127. “When we face our fears, we can find our freedom.”
— Joyce Meyer

128. “Don’t build walls and shut people out of your life. To act as if another does not exist is a mean and cruel weapon.”
— Joyce Meyer

129. “Peter was the only one who walked on water besides Jesus, but he was also the only one who got out of the boat. Until you make a decision to believe, and then act on it, nothing will happen.”
— Joyce Meyer

130. “The eagle has no fear of adversity. We need to be like the eagle and have a fearless spirit of a conqueror!”
— Joyce Meyer

131. “Don’t waste your time being upset about something you can’t change. Begin again and do it better this time.”
— Joyce Meyer

132. “Spending time with God through prayer and His Word is a prerequisite for having a great life and fulfilling your purpose.”
— Joyce Meyer

133. “Happiness is not a feeling, it is a choice. To be happy, one must choose to be happy, not respond to a circumstance that now controls your happiness.”
— Joyce Meyer

134. “You’re worth something because God says you’re worth something-not because of what people think or say about you.”
— Joyce Meyer

135. “If you are accused of being a Christian, there should be enough evidence to convict you.”
— Joyce Meyer

136. “Fear will try to keep you from taking that first step. Don’t give in to fear, do it afraid.”
— Joyce Meyer

137. “If you want to get over a problem, stop talking about it. Your mind affects your mouth and your mouth affects your mind. It’s difficult to stop talking about a situation until you stop thinking about it.”
— Joyce Meyer

138. “I make mistakes every day. I’m not perfect in my behavior, but I want to be and that’s what God is after, a heart that wants to be.”
— Joyce Meyer

139. “One of the best gifts we can give ourselves is time alone with God.”
— Joyce Meyer

140. “God’s mercy is fresh and new every morning.”
— Joyce Meyer

141. “Jesus paid a tremendous price for us so we could have abundant life. He willingly took all of our sin on Himself and gave His life on the cross so we could be forgiven and have new life in Him.”
— Joyce Meyer

142. “We are not filled with the Spirit of God to do easy things. He fills us with His Spirit so we can do impossible things.”
— Joyce Meyer

143. “Be hopeful at all times and walk in faith, but above all seek love an walk in it. God is love, and when we walk in love we show Him to those we come in contact with.”
— Joyce Meyer

144. “As believers in Jesus Christ, our work is to believe while God works on our behalf.”
— Joyce Meyer

145. “Your word is your honor. If you say you’re going to do something, then you need to do it.”
— Joyce Meyer

146. “Humble people ask for help.”
— Joyce Meyer

147. “When we fill our thoughts with right things, the wrong ones have no room to enter.”
— Joyce Meyer

148. “Don’t do what’s right to get something. Do the right thing because it’s the right thing.”
— Joyce Meyer

149. “Sometimes when you are the closest to your breakthrough the pressure is the greatest. You have come too far to give up now!”
— Joyce Meyer

150. “Turn your situation over to God because He can do more in a moment than you can do in a lifetime.”
— Joyce Meyer

151. “Go beyond what you feel like doing and do what’s right. Every time you do what’s right when you don’t feel like it, you are growing.”
— Joyce Meyer

152. “We live in an imperfect world, and imperfect people surround us every day.”
— Joyce Meyer

153. “One of the best ways to walk in love is to be a blessing to other people or simply to help them.”
— Joyce Meyer

154. “God’s unconditional love is a very difficult concept for people to accept because, in the world, there’s always payment for everything we receive. It’s just how things work here. But God is not like people!”
— Joyce Meyer

155. “When you need to make a decision, don’t let your emotions vote.”
— Joyce Meyer

156. “The truth is God created us to have a relationship with us. He wants to love us and take care of us, and He wants us to love Him. That’s where our walk with Christ has to start.”
— Joyce Meyer

157. “Stop giving someone else the job of making you happy.”
— Joyce Meyer

158. “We all face storms in life. Some are more difficult than others, but we all go through trials and tribulations. That’s why we have the gift of faith.”
— Joyce Meyer

159. “When we enter into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, something wonderful happens: God begins to change our desires, and we want to be more like Him.”
— Joyce Meyer

160. “It is our job to listen to God and let Him tell us what is going on and what we are to do about it – leaving the rest to Him to work out according to His knowledge and will, not ours.”
— Joyce Meyer

161. “When you feel down, go be a blessing to somebody else.”
— Joyce Meyer

162. “Integrity means that you are the same in public as you are in private.”
— Joyce Meyer

163. “Don’t just learn from God’s Word, but believe it will change your life.”
— Joyce Meyer

164. “There are two kinds of pain: the pain of change and the pain of never changing and remaining the same.”
— Joyce Meyer

165. “Don’t complain. The Israelites wasted forty years murmuring and complaining in the wilderness when they could have just obeyed God and entered into their Promised Land.”
— Joyce Meyer

166. “There is no danger of developing eyestrain from looking at the bright side of things.”
— Joyce Meyer

167. “We almost always see only what’s wrong with other people and not what’s wrong with us.”
— Joyce Meyer

168. “Bad habits are our enemies because they hinder us from being the person we want to be.”
— Joyce Meyer

169. “Worry increases pressure; prayer releases peace.”
— Joyce Meyer

170. “Are you living up to your potential? God made you with potential – potential for greatness! If you do what you can do, and trust Him to do what you can’t, you will grow into the person He gave you the potential to be!”
— Joyce Meyer

171. “Don’t let your feelings be a God to you.”
— Joyce Meyer

172. “Don’t wait around waiting for God to do something that He’s already given you the power to do.”
— Joyce Meyer

173. “Patience is a fruit of the spirit that grows only under trial. It is useless to pray for patience. Well, actually I encourage you to pray for patience, but I’ll tell you what you’ll get TRIALS!”
— Joyce Meyer

174. “The one thing everybody’s looking for is unconditional love. We all need somebody to love us just the way we are.”
— Joyce Meyer

175. “Faith means that you have peace even when you don’t have all the answers.”
— Joyce Meyer

176. “We can improve our relationships with others by leaps and bounds if we become encouragers instead of critics.”
— Joyce Meyer

177. “Hope is a favorable and confident expectation; it’s an expectant attitude that something good is going to happen and things will work out, no matter what situation we’re facing.”
— Joyce Meyer

178. “Life is sometimes very complicated, but we can purposely learn to enjoy the simple yet powerful and beautiful things God has created!”
— Joyce Meyer

179. “No matter what you’re going through there’s no pit so deep that God can’t reach in and get you out.”
— Joyce Meyer

180. “Some people are hurting so bad you have to do more than preach a message to them. You have to BE a message to them.”
— Joyce Meyer

181. “Motives reveal why we do what we do, which is actually more important to God than what we’re doing.”
— Joyce Meyer

182. “Instead of concentrating on your problems and getting discouraged, focus on God and meditate on His promises for you. You may have fallen down, but you don’t have to stay down. God is ready, willing and able to pick you up.”
— Joyce Meyer

183. “Love gives life purpose and meaning.”
— Joyce Meyer

184. “Discipline enables you to think first and act second.”
— Joyce Meyer

185. “Loving people is the highest level of spiritual warfare that we could ever do.”
— Joyce Meyer

186. “God cares about everything that concerns you, so feel free to talk to Him about anything.”
— Joyce Meyer

187. “There’s no happier person than a truly thankful, content person.”
— Joyce Meyer

188. “For as he thinks in his heart, so is he. PROVERBS 23:7.”
— Joyce Meyer

189. “Trusting God brings life.”
— Joyce Meyer

190. “We can approach God’s throne with boldness because we are confident in the power of what Jesus accomplished for us at the cross.”
— Joyce Meyer

191. “Make happiness a habit. Be so happy you drive the devil stark-raving mad.”
— Joyce Meyer

192. “Start believing the Word of God over our feelings. The truth always overrides our feelings. Find the truth in the scriptures.”
— Joyce Meyer

193. “God wants to speak to you on a one-to-one basis every day. He wants to lead you to the good things He has in store for you.”
— Joyce Meyer

194. “To compromise simply means that you go a tiny bit below what you know is right.”
— Joyce Meyer

195. “People can’t see what’s in your heart – they can only see what you do.”
— Joyce Meyer

196. “Don’t be too concerned about what others think of you. It’s what you think about yourself that matters!”
— Joyce Meyer

197. “Don’t waste another day of your life grieving over something that you cannot do anything about. Let God give you a new beginning. Your mistakes are not enough to stop God if you don’t let them.”
— Joyce Meyer

198. “If you can help a child, you don’t have to spend years repairing an adult.”
— Joyce Meyer

199. “Sometimes I just sit still and enjoy God’s presence.”
— Joyce Meyer

200. “What does God require of us? Our part is to believe. Our work is to trust the Lord. His requirement is that we let go and let God.”
— Joyce Meyer

James Earl “Jimmy” Carter Jr. was born on October 1, 1924, in Plains, Georgia. A former peanut farmer and naval officer, Carter served as the 39th President of the United States from 1977 to 1981. Elected in 1976, he emphasized human rights in his foreign policy and brokered the Camp David Accords, securing peace between Israel and Egypt. Carter faced challenges, including the Iranian Revolution and the hostage crisis. Post-presidency, he became known for humanitarian work and conflict resolution. Carter received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 for his efforts. His legacy includes the Carter Center, promoting democracy and global health. Despite mixed reviews of his presidency, Carter remains an influential figure in American politics and diplomacy.

Jimmy Carter Quotes

1. “We must adjust to changing times and still hold to unchanging principles.”
— Jimmy Carter

2. “We become not a melting pot but a beautiful mosaic. Different people, different beliefs, different yearnings, different hopes, different dreams.”
— Jimmy Carter

3. “Let us learn together and laugh together and work together and pray together, confident that in the end we will triumph together in the right.”
— Jimmy Carter

4. “You can do what you have to do, and sometimes you can do it even better than you think you can.”
— Jimmy Carter

5. “The measure of a society is found in how they treat their weakest and most helpless citizens.”
— Jimmy Carter

6. “We will not learn how to live together in peace by killing each other’s children.”
— Jimmy Carter

7. “Go out on a limb. That’s where the fruit is.”
— Jimmy Carter

8. “We’ve got to stop crying and start sweating, stop talking and start walking, stop cursing and start praying. The strength we need will not come from the White House, but from every house in America.”
— Jimmy Carter

9. “Whether the borders that divide us are picket fences or national boundaries, we are all neighbors in a global community.”
— Jimmy Carter

10. “Like music and art, love of nature is a common language that can transcend political or social boundaries.”
— Jimmy Carter

11. “The bond of our common humanity is stronger than the divisiveness of our fears and prejudices.”
— Jimmy Carter

12. “I have one life and one chance to make it count for something… My faith demands that I do whatever I can, wherever I am, whenever I can, for as long as I can with whatever I have to try to make a difference.”
— Jimmy Carter

13. “Human identity is no longer defined by what one does but rather by what one owns.”
— Jimmy Carter

14. “Everyone has a right to peaceful coexistence, the basic personal freedoms, the alleviation of suffering, and the opportunity to lead a productive life…”
— Jimmy Carter

15. “I will never lie to you.”
— Jimmy Carter

16. “The truth is that male religious leaders have had – and still have – an option to interpret holy teachings either to exalt or subjugate women. They have, for their own selfish ends, overwhelmingly chosen the latter.”
— Jimmy Carter

17. “To be true to ourselves, we must be true to others.”
— Jimmy Carter

18. “Unless both sides win, no agreement can be permanent.”
— Jimmy Carter

19. “God always answers prayers. Sometimes it’s ‘yes.’ Sometimes the answer is ‘no.’ Sometimes it’s ’you gotta be kidding.”
— Jimmy Carter

20. “Life is just too short to go quail hunting with the wrong people.”
— Jimmy Carter

21. “We are of course a nation of differences. Those differences don’t make us weak. They’re the source of our strength.”
— Jimmy Carter

22. “You always get back much more than you give.”
— Jimmy Carter

23. “I am no big shot. I am not anybody’s boss. I want to be everybody’s servant.”
— Jimmy Carter

24. “We have a tendency to condemn people who are different from us, to define their sins as paramount and our own sinfulness as being insignificant.”
— Jimmy Carter

25. “We’ll never know whether something new and wonderful is possible unless we try. Let’s scratch our heads, stretch our minds, be adventurous! Serve God with boldness, and who knows what wonders the Lord may work?”
— Jimmy Carter

26. “If you’re totally illiterate and living on one dollar a day, the benefits of globalization never come to you.”
— Jimmy Carter

27. “My esteem in this country has gone up substantially. It is very nice now when people wave at me, they use all their fingers.”
— Jimmy Carter

28. “If you don’t want your tax dollars to help the poor, then stop saying that you want a country based on Christian values. Because you don’t!”
— Jimmy Carter

29. “We know that a peaceful world cannot long exist, one-third rich and two-thirds hungry.”
— Jimmy Carter

30. “To me, Faith is not just a noun but also a verb.”
— Jimmy Carter

31. “Failure is a reality; we all fail at times, and it’s painful when we do. But it’s better to fail while striving for something wonderful, challenging, adventurous, and uncertain than to say, ” I don’t want to try because I may not succeed completely.”
— Jimmy Carter

32. “We must make it clear that a platform of ‘I hate gay men and women’ is not a way to become president of the United States.”
— Jimmy Carter

33. “I’m a peanut farmer at heart, still grow peanuts on my farm in Georgia.”
— Jimmy Carter

34. “The best way to enhance freedom in other lands is to demonstrate here that our democratic system is worthy of emulation.”
— Jimmy Carter

35. “I’ve never won an argument with my wife, and the only time I thought I had I found out the argument wasn’t over yet.”
— Jimmy Carter

36. “Israel’s continued control and colonization of Palestinian land have been the primary obstacles to a comprehensive peace agreement in the Holy Land.”
— Jimmy Carter

37. “America did not invent human rights. In a very real sense human rights invented America.”
— Jimmy Carter

38. “I believe that we are saved by the grace of God because he loves us provided that we have faith in Jesus Christ.”
— Jimmy Carter

39. “Whatever starts in California unfortunately has an inclination to spread.”
— Jimmy Carter

40. “In many courts, plea bargaining serves the convenience of the judge and the lawyers, not the ends of justice, because the courts simply lack the time to give everyone a fair trial.”
— Jimmy Carter

41. “It’s clear that the true problems of our Nation are much deeper – deeper than gasoline lines of energy shortages, deeper even than inflation or recession. And I realize more than ever that as President I need your help. So, I decided to reach out and listen to the voices of America.”
— Jimmy Carter

42. “God wisely designed the human body so that we can neither pat our own backs nor kick ourselves too easily.”
— Jimmy Carter

43. “Jerry Falwell can go straight to hell – and I mean that in a Christian way.”
— Jimmy Carter

44. “I let God be the judge and I believe that we worship a just and fair God who won’t punish innocent people unnecessarily.”
— Jimmy Carter

45. “Too many of us now tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption.”
— Jimmy Carter

46. “Because we are free, we can never be indifferent to the fate of freedom elsewhere.”
— Jimmy Carter

47. “I have never been happier, more exhilarated, at peace, rested, inspired, and aware of the grandeur of the universe and the greatness of God than when I find myself in a natural setting not much changed from the way He made it.”
— Jimmy Carter

48. “Iran is an island of stability in a turbulent corner of the world.”
— Jimmy Carter

49. “If you fear making anyone mad, then you ultimately probe for the lowest common denominator of human achievement.”
— Jimmy Carter

50. “Today, in directly harnessing the power of the Sun, we’re taking the energy that God gave us, the most renewable energy that we will ever see, and using it to replace our dwindling supplies of fossil fuels.”
— Jimmy Carter

51. “Human rights is the soul of our foreign policy because human rights is the very soul of our sense of nationhood.”
— Jimmy Carter

52. “Our Income Tax System is a disgrace to the human race.”
— Jimmy Carter

53. “When combined, the small individual contributors of caring, friendship, forgiveness, and love, each of us different from our next-door neighbors, can form a phalanx, an army, with great capability.”
— Jimmy Carter

54. “In a nation that was proud of hard work, strong families, close-knit communities, and our faith in God, too many of us now tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption .”
— Jimmy Carter

55. “We simply must balance our demand for energy with our rapidly shrinking resources. By acting now we can control our future instead of letting the future control us.”
— Jimmy Carter

56. “It is good to realize that if love and peace can prevail on earth, and if we can teach our children to honor nature’s gifts, the joys and beauties of the outdoors will be here forever.”
— Jimmy Carter

57. “This intolerable dependence on foreign oil threatens our economic independence and the very security of our nation. The energy crisis is real. It is worldwide. It is a clear and present danger to our nation. These are facts and we simply must face them.”
— Jimmy Carter

58. “The abuse of women and girls is the most pervasive and unaddressed human right violation on earth.”
— Jimmy Carter

59. “But I am not discouraged. I do not despair for our country. I believe tonight, as I always have, that the essential decency, compassion and common sense of the American people will prevail.”
— Jimmy Carter

60. “The experience of democracy is like the experience of life itself always changing, infinite in its variety, sometimes turbulent and all the more valuable for having been tested by adversity.”
— Jimmy Carter

61. “I am pro-Israeli, not because of political expediency, but because I believe Israel is the fulfillment of Biblical prophecy.”
— Jimmy Carter

62. “The evidence shows that investing in women and girls delivers major benefits for society. An educated woman has healthier children. She is more likely to send them to school. She earns more and invests what she earns in her family.”
— Jimmy Carter

63. “Ours is the most wasteful nation on Earth. We waste more energy than we import. With about the same standard of living, we use twice as much energy per person as do other countries like Germany, Japan, and Sweden.”
— Jimmy Carter

64. “I’ve committed adultery in my heart.”
— Jimmy Carter

65. “Penalties against possession of a drug should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself.”
— Jimmy Carter

66. “Everyone who has run knows that its most important value is in removing tension and allowing a release from whatever other cares the day may bring.”
— Jimmy Carter

67. “It’s a terrible and tragic and counterproductive policy to avoid communicating with people who disagree with us.”
— Jimmy Carter

68. “Our values are not luxuries, but necessities. They are not the salt in our bread, but the bread itself.”
— Jimmy Carter

69. “I am not here as a public official, but as a citizen of a troubled world who finds hope in a growing consensus that the generally accepted goals of society are peace, freedom, human rights, environmental quality, the alleviation of suffering, and the rule of law.”
— Jimmy Carter

70. “I have a very real political awareness that at least on a transient basis the more drastic action taken by the president, the more popular it is.”
— Jimmy Carter

71. “The pre-eminent obstacle to peace is Israel’s colonization of Palestine.”
— Jimmy Carter

72. “There was promulgation of false propaganda by the administration about the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. There was promulgation of false propaganda about Iraq as a base for Al Qaeda.”
— Jimmy Carter

73. “You just have to have a simple faith.”
— Jimmy Carter

74. “We cannot change the history of the past.”
— Jimmy Carter

75. “It’s not necessary to fear the prospect of failure but to be determined not to fail.”
— Jimmy Carter

76. “Let our position be absolutely clear: An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force.”
— Jimmy Carter

77. “I remember the last three days that I was president, I never went to bed at all. I never went to bed until we had negotiated the final release of the hostages.”
— Jimmy Carter

78. “Nearly all inmates are drawn from the ranks of the powerless and the poor. A child of privilege frequently receives the benefit of the doubt; a child of poverty seldom does.”
— Jimmy Carter

79. “This is a present from a small distant world, a token of our sounds, our science, our images, our music, our thoughts, and our feelings. We are attempting to survive our time so we may live into yours. We hope someday, having solved the problems we face, to join a community of galactic civilizations. This record represents our hope and our determination, and our good will in a vast and awesome universe.”
— Jimmy Carter

80. “I say to you quite frankly that the time for racial discrimination is over.”
— Jimmy Carter

81. “Wherever life takes us, there are always moments of wonder.”
— Jimmy Carter

82. “I look forward to these confrontations with the press to kind of balance up the nice and pleasant things that come to me as president.”
— Jimmy Carter

83. “People make a big fuss over you when you’re President. But I’m very serious about doing everything I can to make sure that it doesn’t go to my head.”
— Jimmy Carter

84. “I think there ought to be a strict separation or wall built between our religious faith and our practice of political authority in office. I don’t think the President of the United States should extoll Christianity if he happens to be a Christian at the expense of Judaism, Islam or other faiths.”
— Jimmy Carter

85. “Throughout my life, I’ve seen the difference that volunteering efforts can make in people’s lives. I know the personal value of service as a local volunteer.”
— Jimmy Carter

86. “Many of the most highly publicized events of my presidency are not nearly as memorable or significant in my life as fishing with my daddy.”
— Jimmy Carter

87. “No matter where you go in the world in any country in Africa or Latin America and other place, you will find that China is very deeply involved in the affairs of that country.”
— Jimmy Carter

88. “Hubert Horatio Hornblower…”
— Jimmy Carter

89. “I have often wanted to drown my troubles, but I can’t get my wife to go swimming.”
— Jimmy Carter

90. “Our individual fates are linked our futures intertwined.”
— Jimmy Carter

91. “For the first time in the history of our country the majority of our people believe that the next five years will be worse than the past five years.”
— Jimmy Carter

92. “History teaches, perhaps, very few clear lessons. But surely one such lesson learned by the world at great cost is that aggression, unopposed, becomes a contagious disease.”
— Jimmy Carter

93. “When I was in the White House, I was confronted with the challenge of the Cold War. Both the Soviet Union and I had 30,000 nuclear weapons that could destroy the entire earth and I had to maintain the peace.”
— Jimmy Carter

94. “Spirit is like the wind, in that we can’t see it but can see its effects, which are profound.”
— Jimmy Carter

95. “I’ll never tell a lie. I’ll never make a misleading statement. I’ll never betray the confidence that any of you had in me. And I’ll never avoid a controversial issue.”
— Jimmy Carter

96. “Two centuries ago our nation’s birth was a milestone in the long quest for freedom, but the bold and brilliant dream which excited the founders of our nation still awaits its consummation. I have no new dream to set forth today, but rather urge a fresh faith in the old dream.”
— Jimmy Carter

97. “We should live our lives as though Christ was coming this afternoon.”
— Jimmy Carter

98. “In this great country of ours, it is inexcusable that so many children grow up in poverty and despair. The well-being of our children must be the national priority and the responsibility of every individual…”
— Jimmy Carter

99. “My proudest accomplishment was that I never dropped a bomb, fired a bullet, or shot a missile.”
— Jimmy Carter

100. “A joyous occasion is never quite as wonderful as when it becomes a memory.”
— Jimmy Carter

101. “There should be an honest attempt at the reconciliation of differences before resorting to combat.”
— Jimmy Carter

102. “We simply must have faith in each other, faith in our ability to govern ourselves, and faith in the future of this Nation. Restoring that faith and that confidence to America is now the most important task we face.”
— Jimmy Carter

103. “In the final analysis, true justice is not a matter of courts and law books, but of a commitment in each of us to liberty and mutual respect.”
— Jimmy Carter

104. “Habitat has opened up unprecedented opportunities for me to cross the chasm that separates those of us who are free, safe, financially secure, well fed and housed, and influential enough to shape our own destiny from our neighbors who enjoy few, if any, of these advantages of life.”
— Jimmy Carter

105. “If I become President, I’ll make every piece of information this country has about UFO sightings available to the public, and the scientists. I am convinced that UFOs exist because I’ve seen one…”
— Jimmy Carter

106. “Being president is as difficult as writing the perfect poem. And being president is as effortless as writing the perfect poem. Always a Reckoning, my first collection of poetry, was described by Booklist as ‘keenly evocative.’”
— Jimmy Carter

107. “We have a special relationship with Israel. It’s absolutely crucial that no one in our country or around the world ever doubt that our number one commitment in the Middle East is to protect the right of Israel to exist, to exist permanently, and to exist in peace. It’s a special relationship.”
— Jimmy Carter

108. “It is difficult for the common good to prevail against the intense concentration of those who have a special interest, especially if the decisions are made behind locked doors.”
— Jimmy Carter

109. “I just look at death as not a threat. It’s inevitable, and I have an assurance of eternal life.”
— Jimmy Carter

110. “Later, when Bob Hope came to visit us, he made a wisecrack about being a Republican and I announced that he would be moving from the Lincoln Bedroom to sleep in Amy’s tree house.”
— Jimmy Carter

111. “I’ve looked on many women with lust. I’ve committed adultery in my heart many times. God knows I will do this and forgives me.”
— Jimmy Carter

112. “Habitat gives us an opportunity which is very difficult to find: to reach out and work side by side with those who never have had a decent home but work with them on a completely equal basis. It’s not a big-shot, little-shot relationship. It’s a sense of equality.”
— Jimmy Carter

113. “We believe in separation of church and state, that there should be no unwarranted influence on the church or religion by the state, and vice versa.”
— Jimmy Carter

114. “The awareness that health is dependent upon habits that we control makes us the first generation in history that to a large extent determines its own destiny.”
— Jimmy Carter

115. “We can choose to alleviate suffering. We can choose to work together for peace. We can make these changes – and we must.”
— Jimmy Carter

116. “But love must be aggressively translated into simple justice.”
— Jimmy Carter

117. “A country will have authority and influence because of moral factors, not its military strength; because it can be humble and not blatant and arrogant; because our people want to serve others and not dominate others. And a nation without morality will soon lose its influence around the world.”
— Jimmy Carter

118. “The first time I ever saw snow skis was when I was 62 years old and that was 19 years ago and I’m still skiing. So, we’ll be skiing with some very close friends of the Carter Center letting them know what the Carter Center is doing around the world. We have programs in over 65 countries.”
— Jimmy Carter

119. “Our American values are not luxuries but necessities, not the salt in our bread, but the bread itself. Our common vision of a free and just society is our greatest source of cohesion at home and strength abroad, greater than the bounty of our material blessings.”
— Jimmy Carter

120. “No poor, rural, weak, or black person should ever again have to bear the additional burden of being deprived of the opportunity for an education, a job, or simple justice.”
— Jimmy Carter

121. “I would describe fundamentalism as, first of all, a movement led almost invariably by authoritarian males who consider themselves to be superior to others and who have an overwhelming commitment to subjugate women and to dominate their fellow believers.”
— Jimmy Carter

122. “You can not divorce religious belief and public service. I’ve never detected any conflict between God’s will and my political duty. If you violate one, you violate the other.”
— Jimmy Carter

123. “In the bible, homosexuality is condemned, but along with divorce and greed and callousness toward poor people. So its elevation to a highest priority among some religious groups has been very disturbing to me.”
— Jimmy Carter

124. “Being confident of our own future, we are now free of that inordinate fear of communism which once led us to embrace any dictator who joined us in that fear. I’m glad that that’s being changed.”
— Jimmy Carter

125. “The test of a government is not how popular it is with the powerful and privileged few but how honestly and fairly it deals with the many who must depend on it.”
— Jimmy Carter

126. “There’s no doubt that the Christian right has gone to bed with the more conservative elements of the Republican Party. And there’s been a melding in their goals when it comes to the separation of church and state. I’ve always believed in the separation of church and state.”
— Jimmy Carter

127. “The drug culture has shaped at least one major change since the Sixties; It became the basis for overloading our prisons.”
— Jimmy Carter

128. “We cannot be both the world’s leading champion of peace and the world’s leading supplier of the weapons of war.”
— Jimmy Carter

129. “Aggression unopposed becomes a contagious disease.”
— Jimmy Carter

130. “When I was elected President nobody asked me to negotiate between Israel and Egypt. It was not even a question raised in my campaign. But I felt that one of the reasons that I was elected President was to try to bring peace to the Holy Land.”
— Jimmy Carter

131. “America has no functioning democracy at this moment.”
— Jimmy Carter

132. “When people are intimidated about having their own opinions, oppression is at hand.”
— Jimmy Carter

133. “Because I know about the Holy Land, I’ve taught lessons about the Holy Land all my life, and – but you can’t bring peace to Israel without giving the Palestinian also peace. And Lebanon and Jordan and Syria as well.”
— Jimmy Carter

134. “Republicans are men of narrow vision, who are afraid of the future.”
— Jimmy Carter

135. “Last night when I was commenting on the FBI and the CIA, the sound went off for 27 minutes. I should have known better.”
— Jimmy Carter

136. “My decision to register women confirms what is already obvious throughout our society-that women are now providing all types of skills in every profession. The military should be no exception.”
— Jimmy Carter

137. “Thoughtful criticism and close scrutiny of all government officials by the press and the public are an important part of our democratic society.”
— Jimmy Carter

138. “Testing oneself is best when done alone.”
— Jimmy Carter

139. “Our decision about energy will test the character of the American people and the ability of the President and the Congress to govern this Nation. This difficult effort will be the moral equivalent of war, except that we will be uniting our efforts to build and not to destroy.”
— Jimmy Carter

140. “Americans long thought that nature could take care of itself or that if it did not, the consequences were someone else’s problem. As we know now, that assumption was wrong; none of us is a stranger to environmental problems.”
— Jimmy Carter

141. “It would be almost politically suicidal for members of Congress to espouse a balanced position between Israel and Palestine, to suggest that Israel comply with international law or to speak in defense of justice or human rights for Palestinians. If they did so, they couldn’t be reelected.”
— Jimmy Carter

142. “I can’t deny I’m a better ex-president than I was a president.”
— Jimmy Carter

143. “I don’t think that the total creation took place in six days as we now measure time. If we can confirm, say, the Big Bang theory, that doesn’t at all cause me to question my faith that God created the Big Bang.”
— Jimmy Carter

144. “I don’t laugh at people anymore when they say they’ve seen UFOs. I’ve seen one myself!”
— Jimmy Carter

145. “We have no desire to be the world’s policeman. But America does want to be the world’s peacemaker.”
— Jimmy Carter

146. “America has always been a country of innovation and dynamism, entrepreneurship. And I think that one of the things that has made our country great too is its heterogeneous population where people come here from all over the world.”
— Jimmy Carter

147. “We’ve become increasingly addicted to consumption of goods that we don’t produce ourselves, and a lot of the manufacturing has gone overseas.”
— Jimmy Carter

148. “The heart and mind of every Muslim is affected by whether or not the Israel-Palestine issue is dealt with fairly.”
— Jimmy Carter

149. “There was never any question about the morality of hunting, but neither was there any acceptance of killing for the sake of a trophy.”
— Jimmy Carter

150. “We cannot resort to simplistic or extreme solutions which substitute myths for common sense.”
— Jimmy Carter

Joseph John Campbell (March 26, 1904 – October 30, 1987) was an American writer. He was a professor of literature at Sarah Lawrence College who worked in comparative mythology and comparative religion. His work covers many aspects of the human experience. Campbell’s best-known work is his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949), in which he discusses his theory of the journey of the archetypal hero shared by world mythologies, termed the monomyth. Since the publication of The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Campbell’s theories have been applied by a wide variety of modern writers and artists. His philosophy has been summarized by his own often repeated phrase: “Follow your bliss.” He gained recognition in Hollywood when George Lucas credited Campbell’s work as influencing his Star Wars saga. Campbell’s approach to folklore topics such as myth and his influence on popular culture has been the subject of criticism, especially from academic folklorists.

Joseph Campbell Quotes

1. “You are the hero of your own story.”
— Joseph Campbell

2. “All the gods, all the heavens, all the hells, are within you.”
— Joseph Campbell

3. “We must be willing to let go of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us.”
— Joseph Campbell

4. “The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.”
— Joseph Campbell

5. “Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors for you where there were only walls.”
— Joseph Campbell

6. “Life has no meaning. Each of us has meaning and we bring it to life. It is a waste to be asking the question when you are the answer.”
— Joseph Campbell

7. “The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.”
— Joseph Campbell

8. “If you are falling, dive.”
— Joseph Campbell

9. “Find a place inside where there’s joy, and the joy will burn out the pain.”
— Joseph Campbell

10. “If the path before you is clear, you’re probably on someone else’s.”
— Joseph Campbell

11. “Your sacred space is where you can find yourself over and over again.”
— Joseph Campbell

12. “A hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself.”
— Joseph Campbell

13. “Opportunities to find deeper powers within ourselves come when life seems most challenging.”
— Joseph Campbell

14. “The big question is whether you are going to be able to say a hearty yes to your adventure.”
— Joseph Campbell

15. “I don’t believe people are looking for the meaning of life as much as they are looking for the experience of being alive.”
— Joseph Campbell

16. “Life is not a problem to be solved but a mystery to be lived. Follow the path that is no path, follow your bliss.”
— Joseph Campbell

17. “If you do follow your bliss you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. Follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be.”
— Joseph Campbell

18. “People forget facts, but they remember stories.”
— Joseph Campbell

19. “There is perhaps nothing worse than reaching the top of the ladder and discovering that you’re on the wrong wall.”
— Joseph Campbell

20. “The job of an educator is to teach students to see vitality in themselves.”
— Joseph Campbell

21. “The call to adventure signifies that destiny has summoned the hero.”
— Joseph Campbell

22. “When you follow your bliss, you begin to meet people who are in the field of your bliss, and they open the doors to you.”
— Joseph Campbell

23. “The fates lead him who will; him who won’t they drag.”
— Joseph Campbell

24. “If you can see your path laid out in front of you step by step, you know it’s not your path. Your own path you make with every step you take. That’s why it’s your path.”
— Joseph Campbell

25. “Your life is the fruit of your own doing. You have no one to blame but yourself.”
— Joseph Campbell

26. “Passion will move men beyond themselves, beyond their shortcomings, beyond their failures.”
— Joseph Campbell

27. “Suddenly you’re ripped into being alive. And life is pain, and life is suffering, and life is horror, but my god you’re alive and its spectacular.”
— Joseph Campbell

28. “To find your own way is to follow your bliss.”
— Joseph Campbell

29. “The goal of life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe, to match your nature with Nature.”
— Joseph Campbell

30. “He who thinks he knows, doesn’t know. He who knows that he doesn’t know, knows.”
— Joseph Campbell

31. “Regrets are illuminations come too late.”
— Joseph Campbell

32. “The ultimate dragon is within you, it is your ego clamping you down.”
— Joseph Campbell

33. “The dark night of the soul comes just before revelation.”
— Joseph Campbell

34. “Every hero must have the courage to be alone, to take the journey for himself.”
— Joseph Campbell

35. “If you are on the right path you will find that invisible hands are helping.”
— Joseph Campbell

36. “The warrior’s approach is to say ‘yes’ to life: ‘yes’ to it all.”
— Joseph Campbell

37. “You’ve got to find the force inside you.”
— Joseph Campbell

38. “Life is without meaning. You bring the meaning to it. The meaning of life is whatever you ascribe it to be. Being alive is the meaning.”
— Joseph Campbell

39. “There is what I would call the hero journey, the night sea journey, the hero quest, where the individual is going to bring forth in his life something that was never beheld before.”
— Joseph Campbell

40. “It is by going down into the abyss that we recover the treasures of life. Where you stumble, there lies your treasure.”
— Joseph Campbell

41. “I think the person who takes a job in order to live – that is to say, for the money – has turned himself into a slave.”
— Joseph Campbell

42. “Life is like arriving late for a movie, having to figure out what was going on without bothering everybody with a lot of questions, and then being unexpectedly called away before you find out how it ends.”
— Joseph Campbell

43. “Truth is one, the sages speak of it by many names.”
— Joseph Campbell

44. “You don’t ask what dance means. You enjoy it. You don’t ask what the world means. You enjoy it. You don’t ask what you mean. You enjoy it.”
— Joseph Campbell

45. “At the darkest moment comes the light.”
— Joseph Campbell

46. “No one in the world was ever you before, with your particular gifts and abilities and possibilities.”
— Joseph Campbell

47. “Nothing is exciting if you know what the outcome is going to be.”
— Joseph Campbell

48. “Every story you tell is your own story.”
— Joseph Campbell

49. “In choosing your god, you choose your way of looking at the universe. There are plenty of Gods. Choose yours.”
— Joseph Campbell

50. “The hero journey is inside of you; tear off the veils and open the mystery of yourself.”
— Joseph Campbell

51. “We’re so engaged in doing things to achieve purposes of outer value that we forget the inner value, the rapture that is associated with being alive, is what it is all about.”
— Joseph Campbell

52. “All religions are true but none are literal.”
— Joseph Campbell

53. “When we talk about settling the world’s problems, we’re barking up the wrong tree. The world is perfect. It’s a mess. It has always been a mess. We’re not going to change it. Our job is to straighten out our own lives.”
— Joseph Campbell

54. “The very cave you are afraid to enter turns out to be the source of what you are looking for.”
— Joseph Campbell

55. “A dream is your creative vision for your life in the future. A goal is what specifically you intend to make happen. Dreams and goals should be just out of your present reach but not out of sight. Dreams and goals are coming attractions in your life.”
— Joseph Campbell

56. “The place to find is within yourself.”
— Joseph Campbell

57. “Whatever the hell happens, say, ‘This is what I need.’”
— Joseph Campbell

58. “It is within you that the divine lives.”
— Joseph Campbell

59. “The call to adventure is the point in a person’s life when they are first given notice that everything is going to change, whether they know it or not.”
— Joseph Campbell

60. “Respect your curses, for they are the instruments of your destiny.”
— Joseph Campbell

61. “You can’t have creativity unless you leave behind the bounded, the fixed, all the rules.”
— Joseph Campbell

62. “The schizophrenic is drowning in the same waters in which the mystic swims with delight. Edgar Cayce made the same observation in his readings.”
— Joseph Campbell

63. “Follow your bliss. The heroic life is living the individual adventure. There is no security in following the call to adventure. Nothing is exciting if you know what the outcome is going to be.”
— Joseph Campbell

64. “The key to the Grail is compassion, ‘suffering with,’ feeling another’s sorrow as if it were your own. The one who finds the dynamo of compassion is the one who’s found the Grail.”
— Joseph Campbell

65. “Nothing can happen to you that is not positive. Even though it looks and feels at the moment like a negative crisis, it is not. The crisis throws you back, and when you are required to exhibit strength, it comes.”
— Joseph Campbell

66. “Myths are public dreams, dreams are private myths.”
— Joseph Campbell

67. “The conquest of fear yields the courage of life. That is the cardinal initiation of every heroic adventure – fearlessness and achievement.”
— Joseph Campbell

68. “Sit in a room and read – and read and read. And read the right books by the right people. Your mind is brought onto that level, and you have a nice, mild, slow-burning rapture all the time.”
— Joseph Campbell

69. “We save the world by being alive ourselves.”
— Joseph Campbell

70. “A bit of advice Given to a young Native American At the time of his initiation: As you go the way of life, You will see a great chasm. Jump. It is not as wide as you think.”
— Joseph Campbell

71. “Breaking out is following your bliss pattern, quitting the old place, starting your hero journey, following your bliss. You throw off yesterday as the snake sheds its skin.”
— Joseph Campbell

72. “If you follow your bliss you will find a path laid out before you that has been waiting for you all along and you will begin to live the life you ought to be living.”
— Joseph Campbell

73. “The god you worship is the one you’re capable of becoming.”
— Joseph Campbell

74. “Participate joyfully in the sorrows of life.”
— Joseph Campbell

75. “The function of artists is “the mythologization of the world.””
— Joseph Campbell

76. “If you want to see what a society really believes in, look at what the biggest buildings on the horizon are dedicated to.”
— Joseph Campbell

77. “The ultimate aim of the quest must be neither release nor ecstasy for oneself, but the wisdom and the power to serve others.”
— Joseph Campbell

78. “In marriage you are not sacrificing yourself to the other person. You are sacrificing yourself to the relationship.”
— Joseph Campbell

79. “The images of Myth are reflections of Spiritual and Depth potentialities of every one of us. Through contemplating those we evoke those powers in our own lives to operate through ourselves.”
— Joseph Campbell

80. “The black moment is the moment when the real message of transformation is going to come. At the darkest moment comes the light.”
— Joseph Campbell

81. “There is no security in following the call to adventure.”
— Joseph Campbell

82. “First you must find your trajectory, and then comes the social coordination.”
— Joseph Campbell

83. “How to get rid of ego as a dictator and turn it into messenger and servant and scout, to be in your service, is the trick.”
— Joseph Campbell

84. “When an idea is important to a person or culture it will find its way into imagery.”
— Joseph Campbell

85. “Don’t do anything that isn’t play.”
— Joseph Campbell

86. “There is no way you can use the word “reality” without quotation marks around it.”
— Joseph Campbell

87. “A temple is a landscape of the soul.”
— Joseph Campbell

88. “We are kept out of the Garden by our own fear and desire in relation to what we think to be the goods of our life.”
— Joseph Campbell

89. “Life is a guy trying to play a violin solo in public while learning the music and his instrument at the same time.”
— Joseph Campbell

90. “Everything starts with a story.”
— Joseph Campbell

91. “Participate joyfully in the sorrows of the world. We cannot cure the world of sorrows, but we can choose to live in joy.”
— Joseph Campbell

92. “The goal is to live with God-like composure on the full rush of energy, like Dionysus riding the leopard, without being torn to pieces.”
— Joseph Campbell

93. “When everything is lost, and all seems darkness, then comes the new life and all that is needed.”
— Joseph Campbell

94. “Life is but a mask worn on the face of death. And is death, then, but another mask? ‘How many can say,’ asks the Aztec poet, ‘that there is, or is not, a truth beyond?’”
— Joseph Campbell

95. “And that Aha! that you get when you see an artwork that really hits you is, ‘I am that.’ I am the very radiance of energy that is talking to me through this painting.”
— Joseph Campbell

96. “You yourself are participating in the evil, or you are not alive. Whatever you do is evil for somebody. This is one of the ironies of the whole creation.”
— Joseph Campbell

97. “The object becomes aesthetically significant when it becomes metaphysically significant.”
— Joseph Campbell

98. “Is the system going to flatten you out and deny you your humanity, or are you going to be able to make use of the system to the attainment of human purposes?”
— Joseph Campbell

99. “What the artist must render is a living moment somehow, a living moment actually in action or an inward experience.”
— Joseph Campbell

100. “All the old bindings are broken. Cosmological centers now are anywhere and everywhere. The earth is a heavenly body, most beautiful of all, and all poetry is now archaic that fails to match the wonder of this view.”
— Joseph Campbell

101. “The Navajo have that wonderful image of what they call the pollen path. The Navajo say, ‘Oh, beauty before me, beauty behind me, beauty to the right of me, beauty to the left of me, beauty above me, beauty below me, I’m on the pollen path.’”
— Joseph Campbell

102. “Sin always finds its root in our own selfish desires and self-gratification.”
— Joseph Campbell

103. “You enter the forest at the darkest point, where there is no path. Where there is a way or path, it is someone else’s path. You are not on your own path. If you follow someone else’s way, you are not going to realize your potential.”
— Joseph Campbell

104. “Computers are like Old Testament gods; lots of rules and no mercy.”
— Joseph Campbell

105. “Love is perfect kindness.”
— Joseph Campbell

106. “We’re not on our journey to save the world but to save ourselves. But in doing that you save the world. The influence of a vital person vitalizes.”
— Joseph Campbell

107. “You know the rule: If you are falling, dive. Do the thing that has to be done.”
— Joseph Campbell

108. “If you live with the myths in your mind, you will find yourself always in mythological situations. They cover everything that can happen to you. And that enables you to interpret the myth in relation to life, as well as life in relation to myth.”
— Joseph Campbell

109. “Instead of clearing his own heart the zealot tries to clear the world.”
— Joseph Campbell

110. “We keep thinking of deity as a kind of fact, somewhere; God as a fact. God is simply our own notion of something that is symbolic of transcendence and mystery. The mystery is what’s important.”
— Joseph Campbell

111. “If you want to change the world, you have to change the metaphor.”
— Joseph Campbell

112. “When we quit thinking primarily about ourselves and our own self-preservation, we undergo a truly heroic transformation of consciousness.”
— Joseph Campbell

113. “The function of the society is to cultivate the individual. It is not the function of the individual to support society.”
— Joseph Campbell

114. “What you have to do, you do with play. The universe is God’s play.”
— Joseph Campbell

115. “Wherever the poetry of myth is interpreted as biography, history, or science, it is killed.”
— Joseph Campbell

116. “The best things cannot be told because they transcend thought. The second best are misunderstood because they are the thoughts that are supposed to refer to that which cannot be thought about. The third best are what we talk about.”
— Joseph Campbell

117. “Marriage is not a simple love affair, it’s an ordeal, and the ordeal is the sacrifice of ego to a relationship in which two have become one.”
— Joseph Campbell

118. “What will they think of me? Must be put aside for bliss.”
— Joseph Campbell

119. “Follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, and door will open where you didn’t know they were going to be.”
— Joseph Campbell

120. “Where you stumble and fall, there you will find gold.”
— Joseph Campbell

121. “The seat of the soul is where the inner world and the outer world meet.”
— Joseph Campbell

122. “The best we can do is lean towards the light.”
— Joseph Campbell

123. “Wisdom and foolishness are practically the same. Both are indifferent to the opinions of the world.”
— Joseph Campbell

124. “I should have said, ‘Follow your blisters.’”
— Joseph Campbell

125. “I think of mythology as the homeland of the muses, the inspirers of art, the inspirers of poetry. To see life as a poem and yourself participating in a poem is what the myth does for you.”
— Joseph Campbell

126. “Myth is much more important and true than history. History is just journalism and you know how reliable that is.”
— Joseph Campbell

127. “If you’re going to have a story, have a big story, or none at all.”
— Joseph Campbell

128. “You must have a room, or a certain hour or so a day, where you don’t know what was in the newspapers that morning a place where you can simply experience and bring forth what you are and what you might be.”
— Joseph Campbell

129. “To find your own way is to follow your bliss. This involves analysis, watching yourself and seeing where real deep bliss is – not the quick little excitement, but the real deep, life-filling bliss.”
— Joseph Campbell

130. “Apocalypse does not point to a fiery Armageddon, but to our ignorance and complacency coming to an end.”
— Joseph Campbell

131. “Every religion, every mythology is true in this sense: It is true as metaphorical of the human and cosmic mystery.”
— Joseph Campbell

132. “Awe is what moves us forward.”
— Joseph Campbell

133. “The insecure way is the secure way.”
— Joseph Campbell

134. “The Deadheads are doing the dance of life and this I would say is the answer to the atom bomb.”
— Joseph Campbell

135. “The demon that you can swallow gives you its power, and the greater life’s pain, the greater life’s reply.”
— Joseph Campbell

136. “Mythology helps you to identify the mysteries of the energies pouring through you. Therein lies your eternity.”
— Joseph Campbell

137. “Seek to know the power that is within you.”
— Joseph Campbell

138. “The purpose of the journey is compassion. When you have come past the pairs of opposites, you have reached compassion.”
— Joseph Campbell

139. “It’s only when a man tames his own demons that he becomes the king of himself if not of the world.”
— Joseph Campbell

140. “Follow your inner heart and the world moves in and helps.”
— Joseph Campbell

141. “What I think is that a good life is one hero journey after another. Over and over again, you are called to the realm of adventure, you are called to new horizons. Each time, there is the same problem: do I dare? And then if you do dare, the dangers are there, and the help also, in the fulfillment or the fiasco.”
— Joseph Campbell

142. “Survival is the second law of life. The first is that we are all one.”
— Joseph Campbell

143. “The last act in the biography of the hero is that of the death or departure.”
— Joseph Campbell

144. “The adventure is always and everywhere a passage beyond the veil of the known into the unknown; the powers that watch at the boundary are dangerous; to deal with them is risky; yet for anyone with competence and courage the danger fades.”
— Joseph Campbell

145. “You must have a place to which you can go in your heart, your mind, or your house, almost every day, where you do not owe anyone and where no one owes you – a place that simply allows for the blossoming of something new and promising.”
— Joseph Campbell

146. “The problem in middle life, when the body has reached its climax of power and begins to decline, is to identify yourself not with the body, which is falling away, but with the consciousness of which it is a vehicle. This is something I learned from myths.”
— Joseph Campbell

147. “God is an intelligible sphere known to mind, not to the senses- whose center is everywhere and whose circumference nowhere.”
— Joseph Campbell

148. “Love is the burning point of life, and since all life is sorrowful, so is love. The stronger the love, the more the pain. Love itself is pain, you might say -the pain of being truly alive.”
— Joseph Campbell

149. “Our life evokes our character. You find out more about yourself as you go on. That’s why it’s good to put yourself in situations that will evoke your higher nature rather than your lower.”
— Joseph Campbell

150. “The idea of the Bodhisattva is the one who out of his realization of transcendence participates in the world. The imitation of Christ is joyful participation in the sorrows of the world.”
— Joseph Campbell

151. “Every religion is true one way or another. It is true when understood metaphorically. But when it gets stuck in its own metaphors, interpreting them as facts, then you are in trouble.”
— Joseph Campbell

152. “For we have not even to risk the adventure alone, for the heroes of all time have gone before us…”
— Joseph Campbell

153. “The experience of Eternity right here and now is the function of life.”
— Joseph Campbell

154. “A one-sentence definition of mythology? Mythology is what we call someone else’s religion.”
— Joseph Campbell

155. “A hero is not a champion of things become, but of things becoming; the dragon to be slain by him is precisely the monster of the status quo.”
— Joseph Campbell

156. “Whether you call someone a hero or a monster is all relative to where the focus of your consciousness may be.”
— Joseph Campbell

157. “You have been thinking one way. Now you have to think a different way.”
— Joseph Campbell

158. “You become mature when you become the authority of your own life.”
— Joseph Campbell

159. “God is a metaphor for that which transcends all levels of intellectual thought. It’s as simple as that.”
— Joseph Campbell

160. “Both the artist and the lover know that perfection is not loveable. It is the clumsiness of a fault that makes a person lovable.”
— Joseph Campbell

161. “One can experience an unconditional affirmation of life only when one has accepted death, not as contrary to life, but as an aspect of it.”
— Joseph Campbell

162. “Every people is a chosen people in its own mind. And it is rather amusing that their name for themselves usually means mankind.”
— Joseph Campbell

163. “When we follow our bliss, we are met by a thousand unseen helping hands.”
— Joseph Campbell

164. “When you are required to exhibit strength, it comes.”
— Joseph Campbell

165. “The ground of being is the ground of our being, and when we simply turn outward, we see all of these little problems here and there. But, if we look inward, we see that we are the source of them all.”
— Joseph Campbell

166. “Through dreams a door is opened to mythology, since myths are of the nature of dreams, and that, as dreams arise from an inward world unknown to waking consciousness, so do myths: so, indeed, does life.”
— Joseph Campbell

167. “When you are on your path, and it is truly your path, doors will open for you where there were no doors for someone else.”
— Joseph Campbell

168. “Our true reality is in our identity and unity with all life.”
— Joseph Campbell

169. “Mythological symbols touch and exhilarate centers of life beyond the reach of vocabularies of reason and coercion.”
— Joseph Campbell

170. “Participate joyfully in the sorrows of the world. We cannot cure the world of sorrows, but we can choose to live in joy. The warrior’s approach is to say “yes” to life: “yea” to it all.”
— Joseph Campbell

171. “Mythology is often defined as ‘other peoples’ religions’, religion can be thought of as misinterpreted mythology.”
— Joseph Campbell

172. “Writer’s block results from too much head. Cut off your head. Pegasus, poetry, was born of Medusa when her head was cut off. You have to be reckless when writing. Be as crazy as your conscience allows.”
— Joseph Campbell

173. “Where you stumble, there lies your treasure.”
— Joseph Campbell

174. “The adventure of the hero is the adventure of being alive.”
— Joseph Campbell

175. “Poetry comes out of an elite experience, the experience of people whose ears are opened to the song of the universe.”
— Joseph Campbell

176. “When before the beauty of a sunset or a mountain, you pause and exclaim, ‘Ah,’ you are participating in divinity.”
— Joseph Campbell

177. “Money is congealed energy, and releasing it releases life’s possibilities.”
— Joseph Campbell

178. “If you want the whole thing, the gods will give it to you. But you must be ready for it.”
— Joseph Campbell

179. “When people get married because they think it’s a long-time love affair, they’ll be divorced very soon, because all love affairs end in disappointment. But marriage is a recognition of a spiritual identity.”
— Joseph Campbell

180. “We are the consciousness of the earth. We are the eyes of the earth. The voice of the earth.”
— Joseph Campbell

181. “The goal of life is rapture. Art is the way we experience it.”
— Joseph Campbell

182. “The old skin has to be shed before the new one can come.”
— Joseph Campbell

183. “The myth does not point to a fact; the myth points beyond facts to something that informs the fact.”
— Joseph Campbell

184. “The familiar life horizon has been outgrown: the old concepts, ideals, and emotional patterns no longer fit; the time for the passing of a threshold is at hand.”
— Joseph Campbell

185. “The dance is the highest symbol of life itself.”
— Joseph Campbell

186. “Life lives on life. This is the sense of the symbol of the Ouroboros, the serpent biting its tail. Everything that lives lives on the death of something else. Your own body will be food for something else. Anyone who denies this, anyone who holds back, is out of order. Death is an act of giving.”
— Joseph Campbell

187. “Behind all these manifestations is the one radiance, which shines through all things. The function of art is to reveal this radiance through the created object.”
— Joseph Campbell

188. “At first you might find that nothing happens there. But if you have a sacred space and use it, eventually something will happen. Your sacred space is where you find yourself again and again.”
— Joseph Campbell

189. “Myth is what we call other people’s religion.”
— Joseph Campbell

190. “The realms of the gods and demons – heaven, purgatory, hell – are of the substance of dreams. Myth, in this view, is the dream of the world.”
— Joseph Campbell

191. “Any disaster you can survive is an improvement in your character, your stature, and your life.”
— Joseph Campbell

192. “The latest incarnation of Oedipus, the continued romance of Beauty and the Beast, stands this afternoon on the corner of 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue, waiting for the traffic light to change.”
— Joseph Campbell

193. “The one radiance shines through all things.”
— Joseph Campbell

194. “Ducunt volentem fata, nolentem trahunt: “The Fates lead him who will; him who won’t, they drag.”
— Joseph Campbell

195. “God is within you! You yourself are the creator. If you find that place within you from which you brought this thing about, you will be able to live with it and affirm it, perhaps even enjoy it, as your life.”
— Joseph Campbell

196. “Perhaps some of us have to go through dark and devious ways before we can find the river of peace or the high road to the soul’s destination.”
— Joseph Campbell

197. “What each must seek in his life never was on land or sea. It is something out of his own unique potentiality for experience, something that never has been and never could have been experienced by anyone else.”
— Joseph Campbell

198. “There’s nothing you can do that’s more important than being fulfilled. You become a sign, you become a signal, transparent to transcendence; in this way, you will find, live, and become a realization of your own personal myth.”
— Joseph Campbell

199. “The priests used to say that faith can move mountains, and nobody believed them. Today the scientists say that they can level mountains, and nobody doubts them.”
— Joseph Campbell

200. “You can get a lot of work done if you stay with it and are excited and its play instead of work.”
— Joseph Campbell

Vernon Howard (1918–1992) was an American spiritual teacher and author renowned for his practical and direct approach to self-help and personal development. Emphasizing self-awareness and inner transformation, Howard drew from various spiritual traditions in works such as “The Power of Your Supermind” and “Psycho-Pictography.” His teachings centered on shedding negative thought patterns, understanding the ego’s illusions, and aligning with higher principles to attain a heightened state of consciousness. Though not as widely recognized as some self-help figures, Howard’s influence persists in psychology, philosophy, and spirituality. His enduring works continue to inspire those seeking personal growth and self-discovery.

Vernon Howard Quotes

1. “Always walk through life as if you have something new to learn, and you will.”
— Vernon Howard

2. “Just be honest with yourself. That opens the door.”
— Vernon Howard

3. “You have succeeded in life when all you really want is only what you really need.”
— Vernon Howard

4. “Our freedom can be measured by the number of things we can walk away from.”
— Vernon Howard

5. “A truly strong person does not need the approval of others any more than a lion needs the approval of sheep.”
— Vernon Howard

6. “Be teachable. That is the whole secret.”
— Vernon Howard

7. “You can not escape a prison if you do not know you’re in one.”
— Vernon Howard

8. “You must never fear anything at all.”
— Vernon Howard

9. “We can accept God becoming Man to save Man, but not Man becoming God to save himself.”
— Vernon Howard

10. “Genuine effort is success.”
— Vernon Howard

11. “The terrible immoralities are the cunning ones hiding behind masks of morality, such as exploiting people while pretending to help them.”
— Vernon Howard

12. “The problem is not what other people think, do or say; it is your reaction.”
— Vernon Howard

13. “The miracle of self-healing occurs when the inner patient yields to the inner physician.”
— Vernon Howard

14. “Self-knowledge is the great power by which we comprehend and control our lives.”
— Vernon Howard

15. “Procrastination is illogical from every viewpoint. It is like the man who wanted to cross the stream, so he sat on the bank to wait for all the water to run by.”
— Vernon Howard

16. “Don’t try to live. Let yourself be lived.”
— Vernon Howard

17. “Awareness of your weakness and confusion makes you strong because conscious awareness is the bright light that destroys the darkness of negativity. Detection of inner negativity is not a negative act, but a courageously positive act that makes you a new person.”
— Vernon Howard

18. “A clear understanding of negative emotions dismisses them.”
— Vernon Howard

19. “Resistance to the disturbance is the disturbance.”
— Vernon Howard

20. “Do not mistake desire for love. Desire leaves home in a frantic search for one gratification after another. Love is at home with itself.”
— Vernon Howard

21. “The power of the present moment is so immense it is capable – when lived in fully – of destroying forever every past mistake and regret.”
— Vernon Howard

22. “Run forward when possible, walk ahead when you can, stagger onward when you must, but never cease your forward movement.”
— Vernon Howard

23. “See human nonsense as nonsense and save years of trying to make sense out of it.”
— Vernon Howard

24. “Do not be impatient with your seemingly slow progress. Do not try to run faster than you presently can. If you are studying, reflecting and trying, you are making progress whether you are aware of it or not. A traveler walking the road in the darkness of night is still going forward. Someday, some way, everything will break open, like the natural unfolding of a rosebud.”
— Vernon Howard

25. “To change what you get you must change who you are.”
— Vernon Howard

26. “The outer storm ceases the moment the inner storm ends, for they are the same storm.”
— Vernon Howard

27. “What you really want for yourself is always trying to break through, just as a cooling breeze flows through an open window on a hot day. Your part is to open the windows of your mind.”
— Vernon Howard

28. “Genuine kindness is not what we do, it is what we are.”
— Vernon Howard

29. “Anger or bitterness toward those who have hurt you will block your path to higher ground. You can have anger toward people or you can have freedom from people, but you can’t have both.”
— Vernon Howard

30. “Just as surely as distress must follow self-deceit, healing must follow self-honesty.”
— Vernon Howard

31. “All forms of self-defeating behavior are unseen and unconscious, which is why their existence is denied.”
— Vernon Howard

32. “Instead of fighting your problems, picture your way out of them.”
— Vernon Howard

33. “Change is never a loss – it is change only.”
— Vernon Howard

34. “Don’t try to be unafraid. That is impossible. Rather, go ahead while being afraid. That is the entire secret for abolishing fear. The Supermind teaches us to have no self-concern at all. Whatever happens to you, act as though it happened to someone else.”
— Vernon Howard

35. “It is against the law to permit weak people to steal your strength. Never permit it.”
— Vernon Howard

36. “Study carefully the law of cause and effect.”
— Vernon Howard

37. “It is utterly useless to try to change the outer world, for it is but a reflection of inner causes. The true seeker seeks to change himself.”
— Vernon Howard

38. “Interpretation blocks reception while masquerading as reception. Rightness does not need interpretation; it requires simple acceptance and nothing else.”
— Vernon Howard

39. “We are exactly where we have chosen to be.”
— Vernon Howard

40. “The only reason you do not do great things is because you timidly cling to small things. Will you let loose of small things and bear the uncertainty of having nothing for a while? Do this and eventually you will do great things.”
— Vernon Howard

41. “The world consists of imaginary people, claiming imaginary virtues and suffering from imaginary happiness.”
— Vernon Howard

42. “Don’t look for someone in whom to believe. Believe in yourself. The only authentic authority is your own original nature.”
— Vernon Howard

43. “The reason why most people are frustrated is because a lie cannot be turned into a truth.”
— Vernon Howard

44. “You know what is right. Deep down, you know. The battle between your true wisdom and the counterfeit wisdom of society is what causes frustration. Refuse to compromise with what you know is right-with what is right for you.”
— Vernon Howard

45. “We are enslaved by anything we do not consciously see. We are freed by conscious perception.”
— Vernon Howard

46. “Truth is not a matter of personal viewpoint.”
— Vernon Howard

47. “Self awakening enables you to see the human scene as it is, not as it appears to be, which frees you of its chaos.”
— Vernon Howard

48. “Pseudo-mysticism seeks to evade reality; authentic mysticism wants to live it.”
— Vernon Howard

49. “The genuinely spiritual person is one who has lost all desire to be anyone but exactly who he is, without labels and without apologies. He is what he is and that’s all there’s is to it. Such a man is undivided, uncomplicated and contented.”
— Vernon Howard

50. “A desperation to escape a problem is the wrong way. A passion to understand it is the right way.”
— Vernon Howard

51. “Mysticism is not this or that particular cup on the table; it is the water poured into all of them.”
— Vernon Howard

52. “Remember above all that mental stability comes by examining the contents of the mind, not by avoidence.”
— Vernon Howard

53. “There exists a special self which takes every event as if it were the very thing you wanted to happen. That self is the Supermind, which is never upset by anything. Your goal is to nourish it into greater strength. Then, every step is sunlit.”
— Vernon Howard

54. “A perfect method for awakening is to examine the results of our daily actions. If they are harmful, we know we need more consciousness.”
— Vernon Howard

55. “When you are genuinely strong, you neither attack nor defend and so retain your energy.”
— Vernon Howard

56. “Can you think of anything more permanently elating than to know that you are on the right road at last?”
— Vernon Howard

57. “Freedom begins as we become conscious of it.”
— Vernon Howard

58. “Your level of mental awareness attracts the habitual life you lead.”
— Vernon Howard

59. “You command a condition by having no negative attitudes toward it.”
— Vernon Howard

60. “Happiness is liberty from everything that makes us unhappy.”
— Vernon Howard

61. “Society is like a crowd in carnival costumes with everyone fearful that others will see through his disguise.”
— Vernon Howard

62. “Truth does not really hurt, rather it is our resistance to its message that causes us pain.”
— Vernon Howard

63. “It is a true miracle when a man finally sees himself as his only opposition.”
— Vernon Howard

64. “Inner guidance is heard like soft music in the night by those who have learned to listen.”
— Vernon Howard

65. “Worried thought prevents practical thought which could prevent worried thought.”
— Vernon Howard

66. “No one can tell you what is right for you except yourself. So start telling yourself what to do. If you blunder for ten years while thinking for yourself, that is rich treasure when compared with living these ten years under the mental domination of another.”
— Vernon Howard

67. “Ignorant people remain ignorant because they have a secret agreement to call one another intelligent.”
— Vernon Howard

68. “We are slaves to whatever we don’t understand.”
— Vernon Howard

69. “All heartache is caused by wrong viewpoints.”
— Vernon Howard

70. “Our life-transformation is in exact proportion to the amount of truth we can take without running away.”
— Vernon Howard

71. “Insight into the two selves within a man clears up many confusions and contradictions. It was our understanding that preceded our victory.”
— Vernon Howard

72. “Aloneness is a wise teacher. Kierkegaard remarked that one sign of spiritual maturity was the ability to be comfortable when alone.”
— Vernon Howard

73. “It is wise to seek immortality for time defeats all other ambitions.”
— Vernon Howard

74. “One of society’s absurd delusions is that the spending of money can cure something.”
— Vernon Howard

75. “The leap is made by dropping vanity over knowledge and by a willingness to become nothing in order to become everything.”
— Vernon Howard

76. “The search for truth is really a lot of good fun.”
— Vernon Howard

77. “Truth breaks you down so it can rebuild you according to its specifications in Heaven.”
— Vernon Howard

78. “When the mind is exhausted in trying to find the answer, the answer dawns.”
— Vernon Howard

79. “The most marvelous experience of life is to transform life according to reality, not imagination.”
— Vernon Howard

80. “We find the light only after total defeat of our attempts to deceive and outwit it.”
— Vernon Howard

81. “Think of happiness as a state of inner liberty. That is exactly what it is. It is never anything else. It will help if you forget the word happiness altogether. Substitute the term inner liberty. It works favorably upon your thinking habits. It connects inner liberty with the genuine meaning of happiness. And that puts you on the right track.”
— Vernon Howard

82. “Doing good to someone in order to reduce self-guilt will only ruin things for both of you.”
— Vernon Howard

83. “A person radiates what he really is, not what he imagines he is, and attracts what he radiates.”
— Vernon Howard

84. “Is the beam from a lighthouse affected by howling wind and rain? It remains perfectly steadfast and unaffected by the storm. Your true self is like that. Nothing can ever harm you once you are consciously aware that it is so.”
— Vernon Howard

85. “A cheery relaxation is man’s natural state, just as nature itself is relaxed. A waterfall is concerned only with being itself, not with doing something it considers waterfall-like.”
— Vernon Howard

86. “When told that man lives in delusion everyone thinks of himself as the exception; hence his delusion.”
— Vernon Howard

87. “Who asks a king for a penny?”
— Vernon Howard

88. “Beauty is only skin deep, but it’s a valuable asset if you’re poor or haven’t any sense.”
— Vernon Howard

89. “Persistence prevails, like a stream that is temporarily blocked by boulders and then collects force enough to overflow onward.”
— Vernon Howard

90. “Your central self is totally untouched by grief, confusion, desperation.”
— Vernon Howard

91. “Learn this great secret of life: What people call interruption or disturbance to their routine is just as much a part of living as the routine. To split life into two parts, one called routine and the other called interruption, is to be caught between them.”
— Vernon Howard

92. “An obvious fact about negative feelings is often overlooked. They are caused by us, not by exterior happenings. An outside event presents the challenge, but we react to it. So we must attend to the way we take things, not to the things themselves.”
— Vernon Howard

93. “The need to impress others causes half the world’s woes.”
— Vernon Howard

94. “Don’t try to be spiritual. That is only a word in the dictionary. Make it your goal to become a normally functioning individual. Let these principles shape you according to your real nature of a simple, decent, honest, unafraid human being.”
— Vernon Howard

95. “We can no more enjoy life by hoping for a future result than we can enjoy music by waiting for the final note.”
— Vernon Howard

96. “A person obsessed with the need to be happy will never be so. The obsession is the obstruction.”
— Vernon Howard

97. “It is a mistake for anyone to think he has lived too long in his old, unsatisfactory ways to make the great change. If you switch on the light in a dark room, it makes no difference how long it was dark because the light will still shine. Be teachable. That is the whole secret.”
— Vernon Howard

98. “Cruelty practiced as a matter of social principle or public policy, and presented to the community as a means to a higher goal is the most obscene and decadent phenomenon of any civilization.”
— Vernon Howard

99. “Men have the illusion of having a duty to make the world spin properly, which is precisely what makes it wobble.”
— Vernon Howard

100. “Healing fails to occur because it is much easier to injure another than to heal oneself.”
— Vernon Howard

Viktor E. Frankl (1905-1997) was an Austrian psychiatrist, neurologist, and Holocaust survivor renowned for his development of logotherapy. His seminal work, “Man’s Search for Meaning,” draws from his experiences in Nazi concentration camps, emphasizing the human quest for meaning even in extreme suffering. Frankl argues that individuals can find purpose by choosing their attitude toward adversity and seeking deeper meaning in life. He contends that the pursuit of meaning is a fundamental human motivation, influencing mental well-being. His philosophy, rooted in existential psychology, highlights the importance of personal responsibility and the ability to transcend difficult circumstances through a meaningful life. Frankl’s legacy endures in the field of psychotherapy, inspiring countless individuals to find purpose and resilience in the face of life’s challenges.

Viktor E. Frankl Quotes

1. “Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

2. “When we are no longer able to change a situation – we are challenged to change ourselves.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

3. “Everything can be taken from a person but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

4. “When a person can’t find a deep sense of meaning, they distract themselves with pleasure.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

5. “What is to give light must endure burning.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

6. “Between stimulus and response is the freedom to choose.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

7. “It is here that we encounter the central theme of existentialism: to live is to suffer, to survive is to find meaning in the suffering.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

8. “Life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

9. “So live as if you were living already for the second time and as if you had acted the first time as wrongly as you are about to act now!”
— Viktor E. Frankl

10. “For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one’s personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one’s surrender to a person other than oneself.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

11. “No one can take away my freedom to choose how I will react.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

12. “Suffering presents us with a challenge: to find our goals and purpose in our lives that make even the worst situation worth living through.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

13. “Man’s search for meaning is the chief motivation of his life.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

14. “Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather must recognize that it is he who is asked. In a word, each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

15. “Forces beyond your control can take away everything you possess except one thing, your freedom to choose how you will respond to the situation.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

16. “Despair is suffering without meaning.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

17. “Our greatest freedom is the freedom to choose our attitude.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

18. “What you have experienced, no power on earth can take from you.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

19. “What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for some goal worthy of him. What he needs is not the discharge of tension at any cost, but the call of a potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled by him.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

20. “The meaning of my life is to help others find meaning in theirs.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

21. “An abnormal reaction to an abnormal situation is normal behavior.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

22. “The salvation of man is through love and in love.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

23. “Decisions, not conditions, determine what a man is.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

24. “Pain from problems and disappointments, etc., is inevitable in life, but suffering is a choice determined by whether you choose to compare your experience and pain to something better and therefore feel unlucky and bitter or to something worse and therefore feel lucky and grateful!”
— Viktor E. Frankl

25. “Everyone has his own specific vocation or mission in life; everyone must carry out a concrete assignment that demands fulfillment. Therein he cannot be replaced, nor can his life be repeated, thus, everyone’s task is unique as his specific opportunity to implement it.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

26. “If there is meaning in life at all, then there must be a meaning in suffering. Suffering is an ineradicable part of life, even as fate and death. Without suffering and death, human life cannot be complete.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

27. “In times of crisis, people reach for meaning. Meaning is strength. Our survival may depend on our seeking and finding it.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

28. “In some ways suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning, such as the meaning of a sacrifice.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

29. “You can take away my wife, you can take away my children, you can strip me of my clothes and my freedom, but there is one thing no person can ever take away from me – and that is my freedom to choose how I will react to what happens to me!”
— Viktor E. Frankl

30. “If we take a man as he is, we make him worse, but if we take man as he should be we make him capable of becoming what he can be.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

31. “Life is not primarily a quest for pleasure, as Freud believed, or a quest for power, as Alfred Adler taught, but a quest for meaning. The greatest task for any person is to find meaning in his or her own life.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

32. “The one thing you can’t take away from me is the way I choose to respond to what you do to me. The last of one’s freedoms is to choose one’s attitude in any given circumstance.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

33. “Man does not simply exist but always decides what his existence will be, what he will become the next moment. By the same token, every human being has the freedom to change at any instant.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

34. “If there is meaning in life at all, then there must be meaning in suffering.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

35. “The existential vacuum manifests itself mainly in a state of boredom.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

36. “Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather he must recognize that it is he who is asked.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

37. “View your life from your funeral, looking back at your life experiences, what have you accomplished? What would you have wanted to accomplish but didn’t? What were the happy moments? What were the sad? What would you do again, and what you wouldn’t.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

38. “But there was no need to be ashamed of tears, for tears bore witness that a man had the greatest of courage, the courage to suffer.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

39. “The quest for meaning is the key to mental health and human flourishing.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

40. “Happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

41. “For the meaning of life differs from man to man, from day to day and from hour to hour. What matters, therefore, is not the meaning of life in general but rather the specific meaning of a person’s life at a given moment.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

42. “Self-actualization cannot be attained if it is made an end in itself, but only as a side effect of self-transcendence.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

43. “When man can’t find meaning in his life, he distracts himself with pleasure.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

44. “The point is not what we expect from life, but rather what life expects from us.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

45. “Man’s main concern is not to gain pleasure or to avoid pain but rather to see a meaning in his life.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

46. “A man who becomes conscious of the responsibility he bears toward a human being who affectionately waits for him, or to an unfinished work, will never be able to throw away his life. He knows the “why” for his existence, and will be able to bear almost any “how”.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

47. “Love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

48. “Pain is only bearable if we know it will end, not if we deny it exists.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

49. “There are two races of men in this world but only these two: the race of the decent man and the race of the indecent man.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

50. “For what then matters is to bear witness to the uniquely human potential at its best, which is to transform a personal tragedy into a triumph, to turn one’s predicament into a human achievement.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

51. “The last of human freedoms – the ability to choose one’s attitude especially an attitude of gratitude in a given set of circumstances especially in difficult circumstances.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

52. “I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long run- in the long run, I say! – success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think of it.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

53. “There are only two races, the decent and the indecent.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

54. “I recommend that the Statue of Liberty be supplemented by a Statue of Responsibility on the west coast.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

55. “We can discover this meaning in life in three different ways: 1. by doing a deed; 2. by experiencing a value; and 3. by suffering.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

56. “Man’s search for meaning is the primary motivation in his life and not a “secondary rationalization” of instinctual drives. This meaning is unique and specific in that it must and can be fulfilled by him alone; only then does it achieve a significance which will satisfy his own will to meaning.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

57. “Humor was another of the soul’s weapons in the fight for self-preservation.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

58. “No man should judge unless he asks himself in absolute honesty whether in a similar situation he might not have done the same.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

59. “For the world is in a bad state, but everything will become still worse unless each of us does his best.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

60. “It is not freedom from conditions, but it is freedom to take a stand toward the conditions.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

61. “Even when it is not fully attained, we become better by striving for a higher goal.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

62. “You don’t create your mission in life – you detect it.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

63. “At any moment, man must decide, for better or for worse, what will be the monument of his existence.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

64. “The angels are lost in perpetual contemplation of an infinite glory.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

65. “Happiness cannot be attained by wanting to be happy – it must come as the unintended consequence of working for a goal greater than oneself.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

66. “Every human being has the freedom to change at any instant.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

67. “Life can be pulled by goals just as surely as it can be pushed by drives.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

68. “Just as a small fire is extinguished by the storm whereas a large fire is enhanced by it – likewise a weak faith is weakened by predicament and catastrophes whereas a strong faith is strengthened by them.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

69. “Love is the only way to grasp another human being in the innermost core of his personality. No one can become fully aware of the very essence of another human being unless he loves him. By his love he is enabled to see the essential traits and features.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

70. “What was really needed was a fundamental change in our attitude toward life. We had to learn ourselves and, furthermore, we had to teach the despairing men, that it did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

71. “A human being is a deciding being.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

72. “Our generation is realistic, for we have come to know man as he really is. After all, man is that being who invented the gas chambers of Auschwitz; however, he is also that being who entered those gas chambers upright, with the Lord’s Prayer or the Shema Yisrael on his lips.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

73. “Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

74. “Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

75. “And I quoted from Nietzsche: That which does not kill me, makes me stronger.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

76. “Freedom is in danger of degenerating into mere arbitrariness unless it is lived in terms of responsibleness. That is why I recommend that the Statue of Liberty on the East Coast be supplemented by a Statue of Responsibility on the West Coast.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

77. “I never would have made it if I could not have laughed. It lifted me momentarily out of this horrible situation, just enough to make it livable.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

78. “Either belief in God is unconditional or it is no belief at all.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

79. “View life as a series of movie frames, the ending and meaning may not be apparent until the very end of the movie, and yet, each of the hundreds of individual frames has meaning within the context of the whole movie.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

80. “It is a peculiarity of man that he can only live by looking to the future.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

81. “The more one forgets one’s own self, the more human the person becomes.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

82. “Man is capable of changing the world for the better if possible, and of changing himself for the better if necessary.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

83. “It is always important to have something yet to do in life.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

84. “Set me like a seal upon thy heart, love is as strong as death.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

85. “Our main motivation for living is our will to find meaning in life.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

86. “It is the pursuit of happiness that thwarts happiness.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

87. “As the struggle for survival has subsided, the question has emerged: survival for what? Ever more people have the means to live, but no meaning to live for.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

88. “The more one forgives himself – by giving himself to a cause to serve or another person to love – the more human he is and the more he actualizes himself.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

89. “I do the unpleasant tasks before I do the pleasant ones.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

90. “I would say that our patients never really despair because of any suffering in itself! Instead, their despair stems in each instance from a doubt as to whether suffering is meaningful. Man is ready and willing to shoulder any suffering as soon and as long as he can see a meaning in it.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

91. “Man’s inner strength may raise him above his outward fate.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

92. “It is well known that humor, more than anything else in the human make-up, can afford an aloofness and an ability to rise above any situation, even if only for a few seconds.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

93. “The struggle for existence is a struggle ‘for’ something; it is purposeful and only in so being is it meaningful and able to bring meaning into life.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

94. “The attempt to develop a sense of humor and to see things in a humorous light is some kind of a trick learned while mastering the art of living.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

95. “Man can only find meaning for his existence in something outside himself.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

96. “Sunday neurosis, that kind of depression which afflicts people who become aware of the lack of content in their lives when the rush of the busy week is over and the void within themselves becomes manifest.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

97. “Everywhere man is confronted with fate, with a chance of achieving something through his own suffering.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

98. “The meaning of our existence is not invented by ourselves, but rather detected.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

99. “He who knows the ‘Why’ for his existence is able to bear almost any ‘How’.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

100. “Don’t aim at success – the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one’s dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one’s surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

101. “No one can take from us the ability to choose our attitudes toward the circumstances in which we find ourselves. This is the last of human freedoms.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

102. “Having been is also a kind of being, and perhaps the surest kind.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

103. “The prisoner who had lost faith in the future – his future – was doomed. With his loss of belief in the future, he also lost his spiritual hold; he let himself decline and became subject to mental and physical decay.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

104. “Being tolerant does not mean that I share another one’s belief. But it does mean that I acknowledge another one’s right to believe, and obey, his own conscience.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

105. “Challenging the meaning of life is the truest expression of the state of being human.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

106. “God is the partner of your most intimate soliloquies.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

107. “Love goes very far beyond the physical person of the beloved.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

108. “Ever more people today have the means to live, but no meaning to live for.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

109. “Life asks of every individual a contribution, and it is up to that individual to discover what it should be.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

110. “Live as if you were living for the second time and had acted as wrongly the first time as you are about to act now.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

111. “Forces beyond your control can take away everything you possess except one thing, your freedom to choose how you will respond to the situation. You cannot control what happens to you in life, but you can always control what you will feel and do about what happens to you.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

112. “Our attitude towards what has happened to us in life is the important thing to recognize. Once hopeless, my life is now hope-full, but it did not happen overnight. The last of human freedoms, to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, is to choose one’s own way.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

113. “Once an individual’s search for meaning is successful, it not only renders him happy but also gives him the capability to cope with suffering.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

114. “Suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

115. “Don’t aim at success – the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

116. “Fear may come true that which one is afraid of.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

117. “It isn’t the past which holds us back, it’s the future; and how we undermine it, today.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

118. “What is demanded of man is not, as some existential philosophers teach, to endure the meaninglessness of life, but rather to bear his incapacity to grasp its unconditional meaningfulness in rational terms.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

119. “Here lies the chance for a man either to make use of or to forgo the opportunities of attaining the moral values that a difficult situation may afford him. And this decides whether he is worthy of his sufferings or not.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

120. “Nothing is likely to help a person overcome or endure troubles than the consciousness of having a task in life.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

121. “As for the concept of collective guilt, I personally think that it is totally unjustified to hold one person responsible for the behavior of another person or a collective of persons.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

122. “There is nothing in the world, I venture to say, that would so effectively help one to survive even the worst conditions as the knowledge that there is a meaning in one’s life.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

123. “I am absolutely convinced that the gas chambers of Auschwitz, Treblinka, and Maidanek were ultimately prepared not in some ministry or other in Berlin, but rather at the desks and in the lecture halls of nihilistic scientists and philosophers.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

124. “Since Auschwitz we know what man is capable of. And since Hiroshima we know what is at stake.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

125. “Logotherapy bases its technique called “paradoxical intention” on the twofold fact that fear brings about that which one is afraid of, and that hyper-intention makes impossible what one wishes.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

126. “Suffering in and of itself is meaningless; we give our suffering meaning by the way in which we respond to it.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

127. “Instead of possibilities, I have realities in my past, not only the reality of work done and of love loved, but of sufferings bravely suffered. These sufferings are even the things of which I am most proud, though these are things which cannot inspire envy.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

128. “What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal, a freely chosen task.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

129. “Man’s last freedom is his freedom to choose how he will react in any given situation.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

130. “I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was duty. I worked – and behold, duty was joy.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

131. “The pleasure principle is an artificial creation of psychology. Pleasure is not the goal of our aspirations, but the consequence of attaining them.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

132. “For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one’s personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

133. “The more one forgets himself – by giving himself to a cause to serve or another person to love – the more human he is and the more he actualizes himself. What is called self-actualization is not an attainable aim at all, for the simple reason that the more one would strive for it, the more he would miss it. In other words, self-actualization is possible only as a side-effect of self-transcendence.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

134. “A man’s concern, even his despair, over the worthwhileness of life is an existential distress but by no means a mental disease.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

135. “Love goes very far beyond the physical person of the beloved. It finds its deepest meaning in its spiritual being, his inner self. Whether or not he is actually present, whether or not he is still alive at all, ceases somehow to be of importance.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

136. “No one can become fully aware of the very essence of another human being unless he loves him.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

137. “Questions about the meaning of life can never be answered by sweeping statements. “Life” does not mean something vague, but something very real and concrete, just as life’s tasks are also very real and concrete. They form man’s destiny, which is different and unique for each individual. No man and no destiny can be compared with any other man or any other destiny. No situation repeats itself, and each situation calls for a different response.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

138. “Love is the only way to grasp another human being in the innermost core of his personality.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

139. “Life is not primarily a quest for pleasure, as Freud believed, or a quest for power, as Alfred Adler taught, but a quest for meaning.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

140. “I understood how a man who has nothing left in this world still may know bliss, be it only for a brief moment, in the contemplation of his beloved.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

141. “Both men had talked of their intentions to commit suicide. Both used the typical argument – they had nothing more to expect from life. In both cases it was a question of getting them to realize that life was still expecting something from them; something.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

142. “Man ultimately decides for himself! And in the end, education must be education towards the ability to decide.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

143. “If one cannot change a situation that causes his suffering, he can still choose his attitude.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

144. “Somewhere I heard a victorious “Yes” in answer to my question of the existence of ultimate purpose.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

145. “Thus it can be seen that mental health is based on a certain degree of tension, the tension between what one has already achieved and what one still ought to accomplish, or the gap between what one is and what one should become.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

146. “There is nothing in the world, I venture to say, that would so effectively help one to survive even the worst conditions as the knowledge that there is a meaning in one’s life. There is much wisdom in the words of Nietzsche: “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.” I can see in these words a motto which holds true for any psychotherapy.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

147. “Man is not fully conditioned and determined but rather determines himself whether he gives in to conditions or stands up to them. In other words, man is ultimately self-determining. Man does not simply exist but always decides what his existence will be, what he will become in the next moment.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

148. “They died less from lack of food or medicine than from lack of hope, lack of something to live for.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

149. “In his creative work the artist is dependent on sources and resources deriving from the spiritual unconscious.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

150. “Their question was, “Will we survive the camp? For, if not, all this suffering has no meaning.” The question which beset me was, “Has all this suffering, this dying around us, a meaning”. For, if not, the ultimately there is no meaning to survival; for a life whose meaning depends upon such a happenstance-as whether one escapes or not-ultimately would not be worth living at all.”
— Viktor E. Frankl

Viola Davis is a highly acclaimed American actress and producer, born on August 11, 1965. With a background from the Juilliard School, she initially made a name in theater, earning a Tony Award for her role in “Fences.” Davis gained widespread recognition for her film work, notably receiving an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for “Fences” (2016). She made history as the first African American actress to achieve the “Triple Crown of Acting” – an Oscar, a Tony, and an Emmy. Her television contributions include starring in “How to Get Away with Murder,” winning a Primetime Emmy. Davis, along with her husband, Julius Tennon, established JuVee Productions to promote inclusivity in the entertainment industry. A trailblazer and advocate for diversity, Viola Davis continues to leave an indelible mark on Hollywood.

Viola Davis Quotes

1. “They say the two most important days in a persons life were the day you were born and the day you discover why you were born.”
— Viola Davis

2. “You cannot live to please everyone else. You have to edify, educate and fulfill your own dreams and destiny.”
— Viola Davis

3. “When you pray, God puts people in your life to lead you when you cannot lead yourself.”
— Viola Davis

4. “You can’t be hesitant about who you are.”
— Viola Davis

5. “When your passion and drive are bigger than your fears, you just dive.”
— Viola Davis

6. “Anything can be achieved with a good, healthy dose of courage.”
— Viola Davis

7. “They say, ‘To serve is to love,’ and I think to serve is to heal, too.”
— Viola Davis

8. “I had several teachers who inspired me, in both the public school system and the Upward Bound program. I needed several, because I lived in such abject poverty and dysfunction. And they’re still in my life today, because I consider them to be friends, actually.”
— Viola Davis

9. “I don’t have any time to stay up all night worrying about what someone who doesn’t love me has to say about me.”
— Viola Davis

10. “All you really need to do is shift people just a tiny bit for change to happen. It doesn’t have to be huge and humongous.”
— Viola Davis

11. “Do not live someone else’s life and someone else’s idea of what womanhood is. Womanhood is you. Womanhood is everything that’s inside of you.”
— Viola Davis

12. “Sometimes you see how humanity can rise above any kind of cultural ills and hate that a person’s capacity to love and communicate and forgive can be bigger than anything else.”
— Viola Davis

13. “In my mind, I see a line. And over that line, I see green fields and lovely flowers and beautiful, white women with their arms stretched out to me over that line, but I can’t seem to get there no how. I can’t seem to get over that line.”
— Viola Davis

14. “Tyler Perry’s ‘Madea Goes to Jail!’ Which, I have to tell you, of everything that I’ve ever done in my career, that’s the only thing that’s perked up the ears of my nieces and nephews. That is it, that’s done it for them. That made me a bona fide star in their eyes!”
— Viola Davis

15. “Let me tell you something: The only thing that separates women of color from anyone else is opportunity. You cannot win an Emmy for roles that are simply not there.”
— Viola Davis

16. “I don’t want anyone putting any limits on me.”
— Viola Davis

17. “When you’re really passionate, you’re going to grab hold of every rope you see, and wrap them around your arms and legs to claw your way out. And that’s the way I’ve felt in my life.”
— Viola Davis

18. “I would love to be remembered as a person who used her life to inspire others in any way, shape or form.”
— Viola Davis

19. “Motherhood is 50 million heartbreaking moments, and 100 million joyous ones.”
— Viola Davis

20. “Ordinary people who are just kind of just going about their lives are transformed into heroes because they have the courage to put their voices out there. I think that’s a powerful message in this time of political strife.”
— Viola Davis

21. “And that’s what people want to see when they go to the theater. I believe at the end of the day, they want to see themselves – parts of their lives they can recognize. And I feel if I can achieve that, it’s pretty spectacular.”
— Viola Davis

22. “At the end of the day, nobody can tell you how to tackle failure or how to handle change. The world is very good at encouraging you to go along with the status quo and at basking in your successes.”
— Viola Davis

23. “No matter what, people don’t think of me for glamorous parts. I’ll go to an audition or a meeting in a pretty dress, and they still think of me as depressed or embattled. Hopefully, that will change.”
— Viola Davis

24. “I can be busy for three years and you may not even know what I’m busy doing because you only see me in a few scenes here or there, but I’ve been working my tail off because there’s just not a lot.”
— Viola Davis

25. “The world is very good at encouraging you to go along with the status quo and at basking in your successes. But when you hit a wall in your personal life, and you screw up, people don’t give you a chance to navigate your way through it and tap into what’s extraordinary about you.”
— Viola Davis

26. “Creativity only resonates if you infuse real life into the work.”
— Viola Davis

27. “You don’t get the pay-off when you’re playing a quiet character, so sometimes you want to just throw out all your work and say, “Okay, let me do something really funny or gimmicky, just so that I can get some attention in this scene.””
— Viola Davis

28. “We grew up in abject poverty. Acting, writing scripts and skits were a way of escaping our environment at a very young age.”
— Viola Davis

29. “I guess they say, “Necessity is the mother of invention” because you have two stark choices when you find yourself in a really desperate situation. You can either fold and cave-in to it or you can become really passionate about getting out of it.”
— Viola Davis

30. “I think that you always want to gravitate towards people who absolutely are great at what they do and go for authenticity.”
— Viola Davis

31. “I want my work to reflect my level of gifts and talent.”
— Viola Davis

32. “Relationships change us and make us grow.”
— Viola Davis

33. “Sometimes you take a job for the money, sometimes you take it for the location, sometimes you take it for the script; there are just a number of reasons, and ultimately what you see is the whole landscape of it. But I can tell you from behind the scenes – that’s what it is, as an actor.”
— Viola Davis

34. “My biggest discovery was that you can literally re-create your life. You can redefine it. You don’t have to live in the past. I found that not only did I have fight in me, I had love.”
— Viola Davis

35. “And I sit in my jacuzzi with my script.”
— Viola Davis

36. “As an artist, you’ve got to see the mess. That’s what we do. We get a human being, and it’s like putting together a puzzle. And the puzzle has got to be a mixture, a multifaceted mixture of human emotions, and not all of it is going to be pretty.”
— Viola Davis

37. “If the opportunity is not out there for you to play it, then you don’t see it.”
— Viola Davis

38. “We as artists cannot be politicians. We as artists can only be truth-tellers.”
— Viola Davis

39. “Your internal dialogue has got to be different from what you say. And, you know, in film, hopefully that registers and speaks volumes. It’s always the unspoken word and what’s happening behind someone’s eyes that makes it so rich.”
— Viola Davis

40. “It would be great to bust through and make history. But what’s more important is the opportunity to continue to get roles that are complicated and wonderful, to be a part of the narrative and to get to do what our counterparts are able to do. It doesn’t just stop at holding an award.”
— Viola Davis

41. “It’s harder to work with people who are not as dedicated to their craft. It also leaves you a better actor when you finish the project, since you always feel like you’ve learned something.”
— Viola Davis

42. “I love Wal-Mart. You can put that down. I love Wal-Mart. My husband and I hang out there.”
— Viola Davis

43. “I’ve always just simply seen myself as an actor. And I believe that it serves me well to just think in terms of my craft. If hypothetically, I saw myself only as a sex symbol, or as some other limited stereotype, I think I would feel like a complete failure.”
— Viola Davis

44. “May you live long enough to know why you were born.”
— Viola Davis

45. “We know the road of lack of recognition, of people telling us that we can’t headline a movie because black women don’t translate overseas, that every time we try to break the glass ceiling, people say no, people push back. And it’s everything that people don’t see out there.”
— Viola Davis

46. “Cicely Tyson was my inspiration to become an actor.”
— Viola Davis

47. “It’s always hard to be private in public, which is what acting is because you have to do thing really emotionally naked.”
— Viola Davis

48. “I do believe that there are African Americans who have thick accents. My mom has a thick accent; my relatives have thick accents. But sometimes you have to adjust when you go into the world of film, TV, theatre, in order to make it accessible to people.”
— Viola Davis

49. “I’ve been to acting school and I think that at the end of the day, when you just focus on the work and you’re comfortable with who you are, that at some point someone’s going to recognize your talent and give you an opportunity.”
— Viola Davis

50. “You absolutely feel, as a black actress, that you’ve got to ride the wave because there’s just so few roles. I hate to play that card, but it’s the truth. There’s not a lot of roles.”
— Viola Davis

51. “I would love to star in a remake of Thelma and Louise. Yep, that’s the one I’d be interested in redoing.”
— Viola Davis

52. “And ‘classically not beautiful’ is a fancy term for saying ugly. And denouncing you. And erasing you.”
— Viola Davis

53. “Ultimately, it’s not your job, as an actress, to satisfy people’s expectations or image of who you should be. Even in your life, you are just who you are.”
— Viola Davis

54. “I want to span different genres. I want to be able to transform. I want to be able to be sexy, and funny, and quirky, and all the other things that I am. And I feel that the best way that I can achieve that is by producing.”
— Viola Davis

55. “I am not a writer, but I feel that when our production company is successful, we’ll be able to give some young writers with fresh voices an opportunity to put their work out there.”
— Viola Davis

56. “Your only job as an artist is to put the truth out there into the world.”
— Viola Davis

57. “I’ve always seen myself for who I am, which is a lot of things.”
— Viola Davis

58. “To me, it’s always a luxury to be able to work with the best of the best because they make it easier for you to do what you do.”
— Viola Davis

59. “It feels really good to embrace exactly who I am and be my sexy, to be my sexualized, to be my woman.”
— Viola Davis

60. “You cannot win an Emmy for roles that are simply not there.”
— Viola Davis

61. “I think that’s something that people feel that I do really well; I don’t mind it, because ultimately I think the characters I play move people, and who wouldn’t want to move people?”
— Viola Davis

62. “One of the people I’ve always wanted to emulate in pursuing that dream was Meryl Streep, in terms of the different types of roles she’s been able to play and the number of different stories she’s been able to tell.”
— Viola Davis

63. “It’s harder to play a quiet character because everything happens in their stream of consciousness. They’re thinking and feeling the world, but they’re saying very little, so then you have to communicate it through your behavior.”
— Viola Davis

64. “I am not a glam woman – this definitely is a mask I put on for the public.”
— Viola Davis

65. “When you see what the deficit is, then you have to do something about it.”
— Viola Davis

66. “I started a production company out of necessity, the need for great narratives for actors of color.”
— Viola Davis

67. “People are just not impressed by me at home.”
— Viola Davis

68. “When you’re working as an actor, you don’t think that when you get out of school, it’s going to be so hard to get a job. Just to get a job. Any job. Whatsoever. You don’t think that people are going to see you in a certain way.”
— Viola Davis

69. “I can’t speak for the Kathryn Stockett, but I would guess that she feels proud of the progress the South has made because, growing up, she experienced a very different Mississippi than the one that exists today.”
— Viola Davis

70. “That’s how I digest it, ’cause I can press the fast-forward button and I know that I’m gonna have to continue to be an actor, continue to make choices, continue to perform in a show every week.”
— Viola Davis

71. “I think that I’m coming off as the biggest alcoholic in the world.”
— Viola Davis

72. “It’s time for people to see us, people of colour, for what we really are: complicated.”
— Viola Davis

73. “It’s not anything that is just perpetuated by White America or just perpetuated by Black America. It’s just a cultural understanding that you’re just not a part of the equation when it comes to sexuality and I think that people mistake your lack of opportunity with the level of your talent.”
— Viola Davis

74. “I needed to make my wig ogg because I no longer wanted to apologize for who I am.”
— Viola Davis

75. “For a whole generation of Black people we were the dream. We were their hope. We were the baton they were passing as they were sinking into the quicksand of racism, poverty, Jim Crow, segregation, injustice, family trauma, and dysfunction.”
— Viola Davis

76. “I now understand that life, and living it, is more about being present. I’m now aware that the not-so-happy memories lie in wait; but the hope and the joy also lie in wait.”
— Viola Davis

77. “Toni Morrison in The Bluest Eye says that “a person’s love is only as good as the person; a stupid person loves stupidly, a violent man loves violently.”
— Viola Davis

78. “We were “po.” That’s a level lower than poor. I’ve heard some of my friends say, “We were poor, too, but I just didn’t know it until I got older.” We were poor and we knew it.”
— Viola Davis

79. “The sentiment that I had a little trouble with was the idea that, “You change the school, you change the community.” I couldn’t wrap my mind around that.”
— Viola Davis

80. “And whereas I can’t live inside yesterday’s pain, I can’t live without it.”
— Viola Davis

81. “Memories are immortal. They’re deathless and precise.”
— Viola Davis

82. “It’s futile to ask why. Instead ask yourself, ‘What did I learn from this?’” What have I learned from all of it? There is absolutely no way whatsoever to get through this life without scars.”
— Viola Davis

83. “Eating bread in Hollywood is a no-no!”
— Viola Davis

84. “Everything had been hard for me. I mastered hard. Now, I wanted joy.”
— Viola Davis

85. “Forgiveness is giving up all hope of a different past.”
— Viola Davis

86. “As soon as he came into my life, my life got better because I created a family with him, with someone who loved me. I was no longer solely defined by the family that raised me and my childhood memories.”
— Viola Davis

87. “Forgiveness is giving up all hope of a different past. They tell you successful therapy is when you have the big discovery that your parents did the best they could with what they were given.”
— Viola Davis

88. “There was an expectation of perfectionism without the knowledge of emotional well-being.”
— Viola Davis

89. “Courage is the cure.”
— Viola Davis

90. “When you’re poor, you live in an alternate reality. It’s not that we have problems different from everyone else, but we don’t have the resources to mask them. We’ve been stripped clean of social protocol.”
— Viola Davis

91. “I could create my own family and I could create it intentionally with what I had learned.”
— Viola Davis

92. “When my dad passed, part of my heart went with him that’s never coming back. I feel the same way about Julius. I feel the same way about my child, my mom, sisters. It’s one heart. They are completely entwined in my spirit.”
— Viola Davis

93. “I knew my life would be a fight, and I realized this: I had it in me.”
— Viola Davis

94. “I’m no longer ashamed of me. I own everything that has ever happened to me. The parts that were a source of shame are actually my warrior fuel. I see people – the way they walk, talk, laugh, and grieve, and their silence – in a way that is hyperfocused because of my past. I’m an artist because there’s no separation from me and every human being that has passed through the world including my mom.”
— Viola Davis

95. “I answered the call to adventure…”
— Viola Davis

96. “They have the power of giving you joy and perspective in hard times. Or, they can strangle you. Define you in a way that’s based more in other people’s tucked-up perceptions than truth.”
— Viola Davis

97. “We are after all observers of life. We are after all a conduit, a channeler of people. What you haven’t resolved in your life can absolutely become an obstacle in the work that you do.”
— Viola Davis

98. “It is a widely held belief that dark-skinned women just don’t do it for a lot of Black men. It’s a mentality rooted in both racism and misogyny, that you have no value as a woman if you do not turn them on, if you are not desirable to them. It’s ingrained thinking, dictated by oppression.”
— Viola Davis

99. “Being with that group of women who so easily gave up their vanity and just went for it was a huge learning curve for me.”
— Viola Davis

100. “Taking off the wig in HTGAWM was my duty to honor Black women by not showing an image that is palatable to the oppressor, to people who have tarnished, punished the image of Black womanhood for so long. It said all of who we are is beautiful. Even our imperfections.”
— Viola Davis